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.

ShareThis

Collections Phase II

We’ve had over 27,000 collections created and 6.5 million add-on downloads from those collections since the launch on June 10. We want to add a number of new collection features to the website and Add-on Collector extension, including:

• collection ratings
• statistics dashboard for collection creators
• add-on recommendations based on collection data
• recently viewed collections
• Thunderbird & Fennec support for the Add-on Collector

Check out this spec for all the details planned for this second phase. If you have feedback on this, please post it in this newsgroup thread. The website features above are included in AMO 5.0.9, which should be released at the end of next week.

Add-on Developer Hub

In May, we posted about our plans for a new one-stop-shop for add-on developers. Whether you’re someone new to Firefox and not sure if you want to write an extension, a long-time developer looking to stay up-to-date on add-on news and documentation, or an add-on author wanting to update your AMO listings, the Add-on Developer Hub at AMO will be the place to go.

Among the features of the new developer area are:

• add-on case studies
• AMO policies
• how-to library/portal
• API/Language reference links
• add-on builder (extension skeletons with working UI components)
• add-on validator

You can see some mock-ups of what the new site will look like here, or view the spec for all the details. Please post any feedback in this newsgroup thread. We’re planning this for AMO 5.1, which should be released in late September.

Disclosure of Add-on Practices

Many add-on authors, individuals and companies alike, invest large amounts of time and effort into their add-ons, and wish to be compensated for their work. Although we have launched the Contributions feature for authors to accept donations from users, some authors have partnered with companies to support the continued development of their add-on in exchange for the add-on making certain changes to Firefox. We enacted a No Surprises policy in an effort to protect user choice, but unfortunately continue to find surprises.

We feel it is necessary for users to know about certain add-on practices that an add-on employs prior to installation. These practices must be disclosed in a clear and consistent way across AMO. Our plan for this is described in this spec. Please post any feedback in this newsgroup thread.

Add-on Compatibility Reporter

New versions of Firefox are always in the works, and the lead-up to a final release can be hectic for both add-on developers and the AMO team as we try to encourage everyone to test and update their add-ons in the new version. We’ve come up with an idea for an Add-on Compatibility Reporter extension that would be bundled with alpha and beta builds of Firefox and facilitate add-on testing and reporting.

If you have add-ons installed that don’t work, you can report that to AMO. If you have incompatible add-ons installed that work fine, you can report that to us too. We’ll look at all the submitted reports and email developers when we think we know whether the add-on is compatible with that Firefox version, or if it’s not compatible and what problems users are having.

For all the details, you can read the spec. If you have feedback, please post in this newsgroup thread.

As you can see, we have a lot going on, including several projects not mentioned here. Stay tuned to the newsgroup and this blog for the latest on add-ons.

ShareThis

Today, the main feedback concerning the review and distribution process of add-ons is:

• developers feel it takes too long for add-ons to be reviewed, and
• users and developers want to receive updates to add-ons that they have installed that haven’t been reviewed yet

It’s important for us to balance our desire for all add-ons to be discoverable and easy to install with the need for security measures for add-ons that haven’t been reviewed yet.

After taking many of these issues into account, I’ve come up with a proposal for removing the public and sandbox classifications on the site and moving to a more flexible, comprehensive trust system based on everything we know about an add-on. If you’re interested in the review process and distribution of add-ons, please read the proposal and give us your feedback, preferably in this newsgroup thread.

ShareThis

The first week of collections blew away our goals for the launch, so I’d like to share some statistics from the last week. Add-on users have created more than 11,000 collections, comprising 140,000 instances of 3500 different add-ons. Of those collections, 6200 are listed publicly in the Collection Directory, while the others are private. We’ve served over 245,000 add-on downloads from collection view pages, not including downloads served from other pages accessed through collections.

The Add-on Collector has been very successful as well, with 46,000 downloads and about 19,000 Collectors in use. Users of the extension have created 2500 auto-publisher collections, which are collections automatically kept in sync with the add-ons that user has installed in Firefox. And hundreds of add-ons have been shared with friends through the Collector’s email sharing feature.

But the most rewarding measure of success so far has been hearing people say collections have helped them discover new add-ons, which was the primary goal of the project.

Because the response to collections has been so great, we’re going to keep adding new collections-related features and improvements over the next few months. We have a number of ideas for what features to implement, but need help from the community to identify which cool new collection features are most wanted. So, if you’re interested in the future of collections, head over to the newsgroup and let us know which of the proposed features you want to see.

ShareThis

Our eagle-eyed readers will notice a few things about this mockup:

• The look and feel of AMO has evolved.  We’re currently working on a redesign of the site to make it more user friendly and a better reflection of how add-ons are an essential part of the lives of many Firefox users.
• There’s a “Meet the Developer” section which takes users into a page where they can learn about why a developer created an add-on and where they plan on going next.
• Tags will be introduced in the near future, which will help our users and developers explore and classify add-ons.
• And last but not least, the suggested contribution is present on the add-on page.

The Meet the Developer link goes to the following page, which should help developers explain the work they’ve put into their add-on and what features the contributions will help drive.  Also, when users make contributions, they will be able to suggest additional features that they’d like to see. The information on this page, including bits like the average rating, will help users make an appropriate decision around contributing without feeling obligated to do so.

These updates will be available to all developers, not just ones who ask for financial support.  Developers will also have a variety of ways to present contributions, and we’ll use developer and user feedback to determine which ones remain available after the pilot- so view this as a first step in a long evolution towards the best solution.

A big thanks to the fine folks at Clearleft for helping us with the redesign as well to the many developers who gave us advice and feedback on this feature.  As always, please let us know what you think in the AMO Newsgroup or by posting a comment.

If you’re interested in participating in our pilot, please sign up.

ShareThis

developer.amo will be a site dedicated to add-on developers, rich with documentation, tutorials, and community involvement. With this site, we hope to:

• Give new developers a starting point for creating an add-on
• Give existing developers a place to stay up-to-date on add-on development news, plans, and features
• Make development easier with documentation, tutorials, and examples all in one place
• Build a community of add-on developers to promote an exchange of ideas

From this one site, it should be possible for someone brand new to Mozilla add-on development to:

• find out why they would want to build a Firefox extension by reading case studies
• see examples of how add-ons work
• learn how to make a basic extension, and how to build that extension out into what they want
• get support when they have questions
• upload their add-on to AMO and have it accepted the first time (because policies will be readily accessible and easy to understand)

We’ve come up with an initial featureset we think will go a long way towards improving the developer experience, but would like input from the community before we get started. You can see our list of initial ideas on our wiki.

If you have thoughts on these features or other ideas, please let us know on the AMO newsgroup.

Edit: There seems to be some confusion about the relationship of this proposed site to MDC. As described in the wiki page above, there will be no new documentation hosted on this site. Rather, it will aggregate/link to existing documentation available on MDC and other resources. Any new documentation written as part of this site will still be hosted on MDC. developer.AMO will serve as a portal between AMO and add-on documentation, of which many articles are available on MDC.

ShareThis

That’s why we’re looking to launch a contributions pilot by the end of June. This pilot will allow participating developers to request voluntary contributions from users in a way that helps explain how those financial contributions help with the development of an add-on. We know that there are great stories about add-ons, and we want to help developers tell them by explaining why they created an add-on and where they plan on going next.

For users, contributions will be optional — they can choose to contribute nothing, or even increase their contribution to an amount they feel appropriately reflects the value they get from the add-on. We think this is a way for members of our community to participate in the ongoing development of the add-ons they enjoy using.

More details will come soon, but for now please fill out this form if you’re an add-on developer and want to participate in our pilot.

Add-ons Contributions Pilot Form

ShareThis

Our top 5 requests were:

1. The biggest request involves the review queue and the time it takes to get out of the sandbox. (24 requests)
2. There is a real need for better documentation. (22 requests)
3. Tutorials are scattered across the internet and are often out of date.  (21 requests)
4. The IDE’s/tools for writing and debugging extensions could be better.  (15 requests)
5. A few developers really want some sort of marketplace for extensions. (6 requests)

These are all great responses and we’re very aware in particular of the need to improve the sandbox as well as provide a central place for all documentation and tutorials related to addons.

With each release, we’re making small improvements to make the sandbox process better, with the goal of planning and implementing larger improvements in parallel.  For instance, in this latest release, we’ve added a feature that automatically notifies editors when an add-on they’ve reviewed gets changed, thus making sure that the right attention goes to add-on developers who are responding to a rejection.  In the future, we’re looking at creating audit tools that developers can use to scan their add-ons for common problems that trigger rejections, and providing greater transparency into the queue so you can get a sense of when you can expect a review to happen.

For documentation and tutorials, we’re looking at creating a sister site to AMO that caters to both new and experienced developers.  This site will highlight the best of what the community has to offer in addition to providing community features that help connect developers to each other.  The goal isn’t to replace the existing developer resources, but to centralize and highlight content and information in a way only an add-ons specific site can. We’re incredibly excited about what we’re tentatively calling Developer.AMO and we feel it will do a lot to address the issues around documentation and support that developers have voiced.

Finally, some of you have asked about a marketplace for add-ons.  This is something we’d like to hear more about, as it’s something we haven’t made any decisions on and would like to hear your thoughts on what you’d like to see and how you think it would work.

While I listed the top 5 responses, we got lots of other feedback that we’re taking to heart.  Here are the anonymized results, let us know if there’s anything on there that you think needs more attention.

As for next steps, we’re planning a session where you can come visit us in person in Mountain View or virtually via air.mozilla to talk about what you’d like to see from us in 2009 and beyond.  This will happen some time in April, and we’ll give you plenty of advance notice so that you can attend.

ShareThis

For those of you who like to read ahead, here are the slides:

You’ll also be able to ask questions in #airmozilla on irc.mozilla.org, or via the air.mozilla.com website.

Hope to see you there!

Nick

ShareThis

Justin Scott and I will be covering the following:

• Vision
• Mission and Objectives
• Quarterly Roadmap
• Bandwagon (our new social system for managing and sharing collections of add-ons)

You’ll be able to ask questions during the brown bag via http://air.mozilla.com and I’ll post the slides for everyone to see afterward.

Hope to see you there!

-Nick

ShareThis