about:addons - AMO changes & reviews, Dangers of eval(), New XULRunner, Firefox 3.1 changes & more
In this issue…
- Extend Firefox 3: There’s Still Time!
- Status of AMO Editor Reviews
- Dangers of Using eval() on Downloaded JavaScript
- Add-on Statistics Since Firefox 3’s Release
- AMO 3.4.3 and 3.4.4 Pushed Live
- 1.9 SDK Now Available
- Firefox 3 for Theme Developers
- New CSS Features in Firefox 3.1
- New Documentation
Extend Firefox 3: There’s Still Time!
There’s still time to submit your new or updated extension to the Extend Firefox 3 contest ending on July 4. You can read the official rules and contest information at extendfirefox.com.
Status of AMO Editor Reviews
The AMO editors have been hard at work, reviewing 255 add-on updates and submissions in the 2 weeks before Firefox 3’s launch, and 238 updates/submissions between launch day (Tuesday) and Sunday. Please be patient as our editors work through this backlog. Thanks to all of the AMO editors for their hard work. You can read more about review and submission statistics at Justin Scott’s blog.
Dangers of Using eval() on Downloaded JavaScript
Many add-ons don’t make it past the review phase because a reviewer finds the add-on using eval() on downloaded JavaScript or JSON. A new MDC article talks about the dangers and how to avoid them.
Add-on Statistics Since Firefox 3’s Release
Over 16 million new add-ons have been downloaded from AMO (addons.mozilla.org) since Firefox 3 was released last Tuesday (June 17). You can read about add-on stats since the release of Firefox 3 at Justin Scott’s blog.
AMO 3.4.3 and 3.4.4 Pushed Live
addons.mozilla.org was updated recently with a number of bugfixes and new features, including a new theme browser, advanced search, and a beta of the new Developer Tools. You can read more about the new features on Basil Hashem’s blog and more about the Developer Tools beta on Justin Scott’s blog.
1.9 SDK Now Available
If you are building binary components for your add-on then the 1.9 SDK is the official way to build. It’s available for download in Linux, Windows and Mac flavours.
Firefox 3 for Theme Developers
Gavin Sharp has put together some of the highlights of new features in Firefox 3 for theme developers to use. Take a look and see how you an make your themes that much better.
New CSS Features in Firefox 3.1
The current development builds of Firefox 3.1 have more of the CSS 3 selectors implemented including nth-child, first-of-type and default. David Baron discusses the selectors and other new CSS features landing in Firefox 3.1 builds.
New Documentation
Some tricks with laying out XUL boxes are explained. A list of the parts of XUL that are now deprecated and replaced by better objects is now available. A new code snippet section on creating background processes using setTimeout and threads has been added.
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