There’s been interest lately around the SkipScreen add-on and we’re happy to report that we will continue to list this add-on on our site. We continue to support add-on developers like SkipScreen and work hard to provide the best selection of browser add-ons on the Web.
Supporting our add-on developers
October 9th, 2009 by Nick NguyenExtend Firefox 3.5 is Over. Let the Judging Begin!
October 9th, 2009 by rbangoNow that the Extend Firefox 3.5 Contest is officially over, the hard part of judging the add-ons comes into play. We had 64 add-ons submitted with 40 of those being brand-new new add-ons and 24 being upgrades.
We have a great set of judges which will help to put these great entries through their paces and whittle the list down to the eventual winners. The winners will be announced on or about November 9th, 2009.
Thanks to all that submitted an add-on and good luck!
MozCamp Chile & Hispanic Add-on Development
October 8th, 2009 by JorgeI’ve just returned from Santiago Chile, where MozCamp Chile and JRSL Chile were held. It is the first Mozilla event I’ve attended, so it was a great learning experience. I specially enjoyed the fact that it was a Hispanic event so I got to meet many members of the hispanic Mozilla communities. The participant list should be enough proof that the participation was numerous and diverse. Kudos to the event organizers and all the communities, you did a fantastic job in bringing all of this together.
I made a presentation titled AMO, Add-on Developers and Editors (PDF version). It’s a very brief overview on who I am, what’s going on with AMO in terms of helping developers, and the editor community, with a call to action to anyone interested in joining the group. I was happy to realize that there were many developers in the audience, and some showed interest in becoming editors. For all of those interested, I’d look into the Add-on Policies docs and the Editors wiki page. There was also interest in localizing the Developer Hub content, which I think is an awesome idea. Having good documentation in our language is an important step we need to take if we want to increase developer adoption in our countries (I live in Costa Rica).
There was a lot of excitement around the idea of holding events that are more development-centric, like the Mozilla Add-on Workshops. There are already plans to hold one in Perú this year, and another one some time early next year. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on those.
Thanks again to all of you who made MozCamp Chile possible!
The Extend Firefox Contest Extended until Tomorrow (10/6/09)
October 5th, 2009 by rbangoDue to a timezone issue, the contest submission form closed an hour earlier than it should have. In order to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to join in on the contest, we’ve re-enabled the submission form to allow those affected by the early closing to submit your entries. You can submit your add-on here:
http://labs.mozilla.com/contests/extendfirefox3.5/enter.php
The contest will end tomorrow, Tuesday October 6th, 2009 at 11:59pm Pacific Time (GMT -7).
We’re sorry for the inconvenience.
Bay Area Add-ons Meetup Group
October 2nd, 2009 by Justin Scott (fligtar)Our last San Francisco Bay Area meetup in May was very successful, with great turnout and positive feedback afterwards. Since then, we’ve had a number of meetups across the United States and learned a lot about what developers are interested in talking about.
Based on that, we thought a recurring meetup group here in the Bay Area where add-on developers and enthusiasts can talk about the issues they face and get answers to their questions would be extremely helpful. We’ve started up the Bay Area Add-ons Meetup Group and will have regular gatherings.
The first of these is coming up on October 13 at Mozilla’s new office in Mountain View. Rather than the previous meetup style of presentations, these meetups will be very informal, with lots of time for networking, Q & A, and discussions. We may have one very short presentation at the beginning to kick things off, but after that the attendees will set the agenda for what happens.
If you’re interested in coming, please RSVP at meetup.com. If you’re in the Bay Area and are interested in add-ons but can’t make this one, you can join the group to be notified when we plan the next one. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone in less than two weeks!
The Extend Firefox contest ends tomorrow!! Get your entries in quickly!!
October 1st, 2009 by rbangoTime is almost up for the Extend Firefox contest and you need to get your entries in by tomorrow (10/2/09). Entries will be accepted until 11:59pm Pacific Time (GMT -8) so don’t wait until the last minute!
The submission page can be found here:
http://labs.mozilla.com/contests/extendfirefox3.5/enter.php
We look forward to seeing all of the great ideas being submitted. 
Add-on Review Process Redesign
October 1st, 2009 by JorgeHello.
My name is Jorge Villalobos, and I’m the new (first, really) Add-ons Developer Relations Lead at Mozilla. I’ll be working on bringing the add-on developer community and Mozilla closer together. I have been an add-on developer for over 2 years, working on around a dozen add-ons during that time. I’ve worked on a few independent projects as well, Fire.fm being the most successful one, and the one I’m most proud of.
My initial focus in this role at Mozilla is to reduce the add-on review waiting times to a point where authors can have some certainty that their add-ons will be reviewed within a reasonable time frame. The current state of the queues is far from ideal, with the recent release of Firefox 3.5 being a big contributor to the rising tide of submissions. The queues are long, and add-on authors are not happy. I actually have a somewhat important update for Fire.fm waiting in the update queue, and I can’t help but feel a bit impatient about it.
To solve the queue situation, we are working on several solutions. We’re constantly looking for and introducing new editors to our team. We are working more closely with them to understand how they work and what their concerns are, and also to focus their efforts in the areas that have the greatest needs. We are attacking the queue problem from several different angles, some which will help us in the short term, and some which are more forward-looking, such as the one I’m introducing here.
We want to change how we handle add-on reviews, specially for updates. Our current system doesn’t handle well the fact that there are add-on authors that no longer need to have the constant scrutiny of the editor team, and don’t need to have their updates reviewed every single time. We think we need to introduce a trust factor into the process, that allows us to give more freedom of publication to authors that have proven themselves trustworthy. There are plenty of those, and I bet they are the most active authors on AMO. Reducing the amount of update reviews we give to trusted authors will give more time to our editors to focus on new add-on nominations and other updates, significantly reducing waiting times and making everybody happy.
I also cover some ideas for reviewing add-ons that are not extensions, which usually have longer waiting times when in reality they should be the easiest to check.
If you’re interested in the details, please read the proposal on Google Docs: Review Process Redesign Proposal. It’s very short, so it shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes to read. You can take part in the discussion of the proposal in the mozilla.dev.amo newsgroup, or post a comment here. I’ll try to respond to all as time permits.
Add-on development just got easier
September 29th, 2009 by Justin Scott (fligtar)We’re very excited to announce that we’ve just launched the Add-on Developer Hub (beta), the one-stop-shop for add-on developers to find out why they’d want to make an add-on, how to make an add-on, and manage their add-on listings.
Developer Hub
Back in May, we posted about our plans for a developer-focused website in response to feedback we received from add-on developers. The new Developer Hub has something for everyone — whether you’re just getting started or have already made twenty add-ons.
New documentation features of the Hub include:
- Getting Started – an introduction to add-on development with links to important resources
- How-to Library – tutorials, articles, videos, and walk-throughs on add-on development topics
- API & Language Reference – official API and language references
- Case Studies – stories of successful Firefox add-ons
- Add-on Policies – all of our add-on policies in one up-to-date location
- Search – search the best add-on development resources in one place: documentation, forums, newsgroups, reputable blog posts, and more
We’ve also introduced some new tools, with more planned for the coming months:
- Add-on Builder – auto-generate add-on packaging by entering basic information and picking UI parts
- Add-on Validator – add-ons can now be validated even if they’re not hosted on AMO
One of the most important goals of the new Hub is to bring the add-ons community closer together. With that in mind, the Hub features:
- Add-ons Forum – interact with other add-on developers and get help
- Newsletter – about:addons is our monthly newsletter
- Developer News & Promos – relevant news and important information is now prominent throughout the Hub
- Upcoming Events – find out when an add-on event is coming to your area
Developer Tools & News Feed
The tools developers use to submit and manage their add-ons on addons.mozilla.org are now part of the Developer Hub, and we’ve added a cool new way to stay up to date with what’s happening with your add-ons: the add-on news feed.
Any time something of note happens to an add-on, it is recorded in the news feed for the developer to see. This includes developer and editor actions like editing an add-on, submitting a new version, and approving a new version, but also includes user actions such as reviews and collections.
The news feed is available via RSS for one or all of your add-ons.
Search Revamp
As part of this release, we’ve also re-worked our AMO search engine from scratch to provide much more accurate results. This is a huge and much anticipated improvement, and will be covered in detail in a separate blog post.
A big thanks goes to everyone who made this release possible, from the developers, testers, and designers to those who helped review documentation and content.
Time is Almost Up! Only 7 Days Left for the Extend Firefox 3.5 Contest!
September 25th, 2009 by rbangoHi everyone! There are only 7 days left to put the final touches on your genius idea. Remember, the contest closes on October 2, 2009 at 11:59pm PST!
We are eager to see what you’ve come up with. As always, let us know if you have any last minute questions or needs. Thanks for being involved and making this contest great. Good luck to all!
Add-on Success Story: Shareaholic for Firefox
September 25th, 2009 by rbangoWe recently received some great news from Jay Meattle of Shareaholic and wanted to share it with the community:
“This week we closed an angel round of funding for Shareaholic to support and accelerate ongoing development from prominent east coast angels. We may also be a part of a NY Times story this Sunday!
The reason this may be interesting to add-on developers (& startups in general) is that Shareaholic got its start from Extend Firefox. I tell everyone this.
Shareaholic is now a company, my full time attention is now on it, and we just successfully raised an angel round in an iffy economic environment. When the first release of Shareaholic was pushed live on AMO, I most certainly did not start off thinking we’d be where we are today. I built Shareaholic to fulfill my own need, decided to release it to the world, and it just happens that a lot of other folks have the same need! It also comes back to my philosophy that if you build a good product, keep improving it based on community feedback, and always keep your users number one, good things will happen.
Other add-on authors should use Extend Firefox as a launching platform — as you never know – their add-on may just end up becoming a lot bigger than themselves and change their lives. Extend Firefox is a lot bigger than the great prizes on offer. Extend Firefox kickstarted my awesome Shareaholic journey. I adore our users and the resulting community that has formed around Shareaholic, it has been really fulfilling, and there isn’t a day that we wouldn’t go way above and beyond for our users.”
A couple of things to take away from this are that the Mozilla platform offers developers the tools to build successful web ventures as well as the support and distribution channels to get your product out to a large, focused audience. In addition, the Extend Firefox contest is an excellent way to get introduced into add-on development and also make your mark in the browser application world.
Jay, Mozilla congratulates you on your success and we hope to continue to provide the best platform, tools & support for developers to build world-class applications such as Shareaholic.
