about:addons - AMO changes, Future of add-ons, Bundling components & more
In this issue…
- Add-on Compatibility with Firefox 3.0.*
- The Future of Add-ons Management
- AMO 3.5 Developer Tool Changes
- Bundling Binary Components for Firefox 2 and 3
- Get Your Extensions Accessible
- Extend Firefox 3
- AMO 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 Released
- Songbird Add-on Site Redesign
Add-on Compatibility with Firefox 3.0.*
Firefox version strings 3.0 and 3.0.* have now been added to the addons.mozilla.org (AMO) list of allowed versions, so add-on authors can now specify compatibility with these versions. As a reminder, it is not necessary to upload a new version of your add-on if you are only bumping compatibility. See Basil Hashem’s post for more information.
If you haven’t yet got started updating your add-ons for Firefox 3 (shame on you!) check out the MDC for a crash course in what’s new in Firefox 3.
The Future for Add-ons Management
Dave Townsend is soliciting feedback on future enhancements to the Extension Manager. Here are some ideas he lists to start the ball rolling:
- Installing add-ons without restarts
- Presenting more detail in the install dialog
- Simplifying the UI
- Deprecating install.rdf and replacing with a simpler xml or json format
- Add-on dependencies with automatic resolution
Head over to his blog post and add your 2 cents.
AMO 3.5 Developer Tool Changes
Justin Scott has been posting details about the improvements coming in the next rollout of AMO (v3.5). The Developer Tools area has been rewritten to make the user interface more intuitive and provide a number of new features. Here are the areas Justin has covered:
- Improvements for managing authors
- Improvements to the translation box
- Cleaner category management
- Restructures property editor
- Improvements for managing add-on versions and files
Bundling Binary Components for Firefox 2 and 3
Significant changes required for updating binary components have some add-on developers finding the transition to Firefox 3 to be difficult. The changes can be large enough to require two sets of components, for Firefox 2 and 3 respectively. One way to make the process easier is to use a proxy stub to load the correct binary component at runtime. There is a new article on MDC with the details.
Get Your Extensions Accessible
Marco Zehe has an excellent post on making your extensions accessible to those using screenreaders and keyboards and includes some add-ons that have made the effort. Be sure to give his post and the guidelines he links to a read through if you want your extensions to be usable by as many people as possible.
Extend Firefox 3
Remember to get your submissions in for the Extend Firefox 3 contest which runs through July 4th, 2008. This edition of Extend Firefox is open to even more countries and we’re also opening up a special category to award prizes to existing Firefox Add-ons that are updated for Firefox 3 and that show significant improvements in performance and user experience.
AMO 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 Released
addons.mozilla.org is now releasing a new version about every two weeks. You can read more about version 3.4.1, released on May 1, and version 3.4.2, released on May 15.
Songbird Add-ons Site Redesign
The guys at Songbird have been working behind the scenes to bring a set of improvements to their add-ons site that should make it easier for users to find and install the add-ons they are most interested in. They boast better searching, categorizing and tagging as well has better handling of your add-ons metadata. Check out the sneak peek.
Subscribe
Haven’t subscribed to the about:addons newsletter? Sign up here!.