If you want to look for add-ons that are compatible with older versions of Firefox, you just need to visit AMO with those older versions. It’s not very useful to show to users add-ons that they can’t install.
BUT the problem with that is people like myself who are on Mac OS 10.6.8 CANNOT upgrade past FF v48, again a product that is only 1 year old (and v16 is only 2 yrs old)…
Encouraging users to upgrade for security is one thing…trying to force them against their will, or in our case, ability, lacks consideration (to put it mildly)…
And in the case, are you saying that the AMO redesign that locks out v48 is for security reasons? Hardly seems justifiable on that basis.
Using a supported version of the application (and operating system for that matter) is strongly recommended for security reasons. AMO targets supported versions of Firefox for more practical reasons (easier to test, less code to maintain, better web features available, etc.).
Actually it is VERY useful…for example for managing and organizing collections…
Accessing those same collections occurs from several different versions of FF depending on which computer I use…you are not considering a broader scope of use cases, only from the perspective on one user dealing with only their browser…that is rather short-sighted…
People is support positions need access from various points…and hence various versions of FF…
Bottom line, do not force only one use case model…maintain flexibility … people are far more creative in their approaches and uses…
P.S. I in fact often access AMO using Chrome because I need to look up something or need to manage a collection and it is just simpler, faster and more convenient to do so in the moment…
I understand all that…but what you are communicating is that unless you are using the latest and the “greatest” you are not welcome here…and again it is only ONE YEAR OLD!!!
And again, consider those that CANNOT upgrade for many reasons, be it software or hardware limitations, they are not forced to replace their equipment (if they even can; it some cases not possible), even if their equipment is quite capable?
Seems pretty heavy handed overall…
Can you imagine if any other company, MS, Apple, etc. started locking out users from features, website access, etc. after only ONE YEAR?!?!?!?!
Not sure why my previous post was hidden…all I am trying to get at is trying to understand what justification there is to not take into account users of version of FF that are still only ONE YEAR OLD (e.g. v48)…or for that matter 2 years old (e.g. v16)…
Mozilla is being very restrictive and not considering the needs and constraints of many loyal users by trying to force users into upgrading, when in many cases it may not be possible…And using “security” as a justification makes no sense in the context of AMO…
If any meaningful insight can be provided, that would be appreciated.
It was hidden because it’s offtopic and not useful for the discussion. I already gave you the reasons for this decision. Clearly you disagree, and at this point we’re just talking past each other. There’s no point in adding the same arguments again and again, derailing all other discussion happening in this thread.
I am not really happy with the new look of addons.mozilla.org.
In Developper Hub, I can’t access directly to my addon statistics. Now I have to go to the edit page of each addon which redirects to the old site and then click on View Statistics Dashboard whereas before I had directly the links to Statistics in My Addons list.
Moreover, I just published a new addon this week. In the old site, my addon was visible in the front page of addon category for some days whereas now I can’t see it at all 
Given that there are many people not happy with the new website (including me), I would like to ask the following.
Is there a publicly available online document or link (bugzilla bug, or otherwise) that:
(1) Lists the deficiencies with the legacy addon site (from a user stand point)
(2) Lists the feedback sought and received from the users/addon-developers who use the site
(3) A proposal on the new design that addresses the issues identified in (1) and (2) above and a list of the features that are going to be supported vs. the ones that will be removed based on (1) and (2) above
(4) A final design document based on (1), (2), and (3) above?
If not, is the new website simply an executive decision based on other factors? If so, what are these factors? Is there any publicly available link to a document or bug report with all the details of this executive decision?
These details will be a good guide on the product management processes and best practices used by Mozilla and on how and when you take user feedback into account (before, during, or after design and or implementation).
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Blockquote “Don’t know if this is adequate for you, but you can use the AMO API for this. For example, this query2 should give you the latest extensions.”
That probably is fine for me; honestly – except clicking on the link you provided brings up a page of text that is, functionally, unreadable. I wanted to attach a picture of the page, but I can’t.
I mean - I’m sure the information is there. At its heart this is nothing more than a graphical representation of a database. Heck - I’d live with being able to search for “all add-ons added since xxxx date” - but a simple line that lists the date (and the option to sort BY date added) doesn’t seem like it would use a whole lot of resource.
What’s sadder still is - with the release of Quantum, I believe I’m finally able to use Firefox as my primary browser again. The Chrome store is equally a mess (same issue - can’t sort by recently added); and this means the odds of me “stumbling” onto an extension that I wasn’t looking for, will be quite low (whereas, before, I would routinely find new addons to try out …)
That isn’t part of the redesign, but some previous changes we made to the landing page of the Developer Hub. The My Add-ons page is still available, which has what you need. We will be redesigning the Developer Hub next year, and making the landing page more useful is part of what’s planned.
The start of the redesign happened before my time (as Product Manager), so I don’t have the initial documentation for it. There are various reasons that motivated it:
- An old and overly busy look and feel.
- The lack of proper unit testing for front-end components.
- Accumulation of rarely used features that provided little value, which made the codebase larger and more prone to problems and security bugs.
- Separate desktop and mobile sites.
The list of features and what to port or not to port can be found in this document. Feel free to add comments to the doc or ask here if you have questions on any specifics.
It should load a JSON document, which Firefox then parses and shows like a tree. Granted, it’s structured data meant for programs rather than humans, but it shouldn’t be hard to use a script or an add-on to make sense of that data. I may be able to hack something together if someone doesn’t do it before.
Thanks for the link. I see that there are comments in that document that go back as early as 2012.
But the associated github that tracks the issues has activity only starting 2016. So, this has been a long time coming and in that context, it might have helped to publish a wireframe/mockup of the screen layouts for user feedback. Otherwise, the focus ends up being on developer centric things like APIs without enough regard for the concerns of non-technical users.
The addons website does look very nice on a mobile device. And maybe that is the market where Mozilla has some options for improvement since Chrome webextensions are not supported on their mobile version of the browser.
It would help to get some insight into the market segments you are focusing on. Users will know if they are in play and decide accordingly and add-on developers will know where to focus their efforts (mobile friendly vs. desktop friendly in case both are not easy to do together).
As a non-profit how do you measure the success of these projects? Market share? Increase in traffic to the addons website? Do you publish such information (project goals, and measures of success/failure) to the general public or is this information confidential?
Each product has a Product Manager who is in charge of writing the specifications for each project, which should include goals that are measurable (within reason). They should generally be public, but that depends on the details of the project.
For AMO, I publish a quarterly update of AMO projects in the dev-addons list, which includes links to the relevant documents.
One more thing. In the search list, extensions and themes are mixed. That is, in the new interface, I can not immediately see the information about compatibility with my version of the browser, but I can see themes that I do not need. I really do not need themes. Absolutely. I am completely satisfied with the standard light theme. I’m starting to look for extensions. Somewhere on the second or third page I see a hodgepodge of extensions and themes. I choose the option to show only extensions. And I find myself on the first page of the search list. Why did you remove the convenient features and add uncomfortable ones?
Separate desktop and mobile sites.
This is not a bug. Facebook envy is not a feature.
Facebook provides a news feed using an infinite scroll paradigm.
That is reasonable because almost all of the news is rubbish and
discarded by the user. The small bits of the news that are
interesting are immediately responded to. I reckon no-one ever
goes back and looks at yesterday’s news.
However a technical forum is full of useful stuff that I would want
to browse back over months. For example I might be looking for the
kinds of bugs that people have encountered so I would know what I
was in for. This is pretty much infeasible with an infinite scroll
design.
Please stop aping Facebook. At least on desktops, a paged paradigm
is much more browsable.
You can filter any search results page by Add-on Type. The filters are in the column to the left. Having said that, we’ve come to realize that this particular option needs to have better visibility.
I’m starting to think about filters when I’m on the third page. When I start to notice unnecessary topics for me. I turn on the filter, and move to the first page of the search list. This is terribly annoying. If I was looking for a theme for design, I was also hampered by extensions in the search list. It’s like feeding pasta and cakes on one plate, and the user must himself separate this mix.
I have a bug on my Add-on page. The issue is, that in the field ‘Release Notes for x.x’ the actual release notes aren’t displayed. I am using HTML lists (ul and li) for for them.
This is how it currently looks:
This is the markup used:
<ul>
<li>Better icon for small resolutions (16, 32, and 48 pixels)</li>
<li>Now translated to TSPs 3 most used languages
<ul>
<li>English</li>
<li>French</li>
<li>German</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Provide a notification feedback when using the Card ID feature</li>
<li>Added Privacy Policy</li>
<li>Squashed some bugs
<ul>
<li>Compact Mode styling</li>
<li>Resizable lists not working due to bad storage initialization</li>
<li>Compact Mode not collapsing Stickers correctly</li>
<li>Copy ID feature not working (it now copies the actual link to the card)</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
Add-on page is here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/trello-super-powers/
As a sidenote: During page loading, the list is displayed for a fraction of time. So it somehow gets removed then. If I put text outside of the HTML tags then it is displayed on the page, but only the text outside the HTML.
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