Basil's Bodacious Blog

The webdev team has updated AMO with a set of key fixes in a new incremental release. This revision includes:

• New list views for Newest & Recently Updated add-ons
• Display of last modified date on add-on pages
• A revised version history page
• Ability for users to change their email address and many fixes related to the user signup process, email address and password handling
• Easy discovery of languages and dictionaries details pages
• Various search items: new search button, themes, dictionaries and language packs showing now up correctly

There were other fixes as well – full bugzilla fix list. We plan to revise AMO with another release in about 2 weeks.

Now that Firefox 3.0 Release Candidates are starting to become available, we have made modifications to AMO to accept the production version numbers for Firefox 3. In particular, we have added “3.0″ and “3.0.*” as valid Firefox compatible versions. The full application compatibility list is available here.

What this means for you as an add-on author is that after you test with the Firefox 3 release candidates, you can use the Developer Tools section on AMO to bump your version number without having to upload a new version of your add-on.

For completeness, if you want to support Firefox (and none of the alpha’s, betas and pre-releases), here are the recommended version ranges (minVersion – maxVersion) to use:

• Firefox 2: 2.0 – 2.0.0.*
• Firefox 3: 3.0 – 3.0.* (Note: that with Firefox 3, it’s a three part version number)

As mentioned previously, the AMO development team has moved to a more iterative development model. This is our second iteration under the new regime. The changes we’ve rolled out to the site include:

• Added back the application compatibility ranges on the add-on details pages
• Due to popular demand, we’ve separated Themes from Appearance-related extensions and Dictionaries & Language Packs from “Language Support” extensions. So, there are a few more categories that appear on the left-hand side menu.
• Fixed an issue with IE7 not being able to download Thunderbird add-ons
• Reviews titles are now being shown
• Matched up the download counts, details pages now show both weekly and cumulative downloads
• Added RSS buttons to task-oriented menu box
• Resolved a CSRF issue
• Matched up review counts
• Increased the default add-on list size from 10 to 20

There were other fixes as well – full bugzilla fix list. Our next iteration will come in about 2 weeks time.

One of the main goals for AMO is to help introduce add-ons to the user base of Firefox (and other other apps supported on AMO). The recommended list has been one of the ways to do that.

Prior to AMO v3.2, a single list of add-ons was maintained that showcased a sample of what can be done with add-ons. This came to be known as the “Recommended List”. Participation in the recommended list was coveted by authors since it was one of the more visited pages on the site and meant your add-on got downloaded more. AMO currently receives about 5 million pageviews per day with approximately 3% of the traffic to the recommended list. The list has grown and changed over time but has had about 25 add-ons on it. With a single list, the members of the recommended list got the most attention and “starved out” visibility for other add-ons.

One of the changes that was introduced with the latest AMO redesign is the ability to highlight a wider variety of add-ons. Instead of a single list, recommendations are now on a per-application, per-category and a per-locale basis. This gives the community greater flexibility and  increases the face time and exposure (impressions) that an add-on can have.

With AMO 3.2, we now have many lists.

• Category-Recommended lists are edited lists managed by the AMO editors. They represent a list of the most interesting add-ons for a particular category.
• Category-Recommended add-ons appear on:
  • One of the two slots in the AMO category landing page (see sample)
  • The Recommended List page for that category (see sample)
  • The default view in the “Get Add-Ons” panel in the Firefox 3 Add-Ons Manager (once this bug is fixed).
• We anticipate about 5-10 recommended add-ons per category. (Fuzzy math: 14 categories x 10 add-on/category = 140 recommended. Approximately 5000 add-ons on AMO means 3% are recommended.)
• As AMO editors are constantly reviewing add-ons, they can opt to showcase promising add-ons
• Add-on authors can request to become recommended (see last question)

• The Featured list is an edited list managed by the AMO administrators and editors that showcases add-ons for a period of time. This list will have add-ons rotate into and out of it on a periodic basis. Currently, once every 3-4 weeks. The list will be chosen from the existing set of Category-Recommended add-ons.
  • Members of the Featured list will be rotated into one of three slots on the front page of AMO
  • In order to ensure that the feature list maintains a wide sampling of add-ons from various categories, not all add-ons will be swapped out since some categories will need representation.
  • We anticipate about 20-30ish add-ons to be on the featured list at any one time
  • Currently, the following add-on categories will not be chosen for participation in the Featured list: Web Development, Language Tools & Toolbars. This may be revisited at a later date.

So, check out the new AMO site and the latest batch of Category-Recommended add-ons as well as the most recent rotation of Featured add-ons.

We’ve tried to outline a policy around how all this will be managed – if you’d like to read and review the gory details on how the featured and recommend lists work – check this out. Feedback is appreciated as we are trying to be as transparent as possible. There’s more to do in this area including clarifying some edge cases on policy, considering whether to recommend themes and building locale-specific Category-Recommended and Featured lists.

Last week, Mitchell outlined a series of guiding principles for the Mozilla organization regarding web sites, data and privacy.

She proposed we use a web analytics tool from Omniture to help us understand how users interact with our web properties. After considering feedback and any commentary, we’ve updated the privacy policy to support the use of this web analytics tool. The new policy conforms to the commitments laid out in the earlier discussion.  Absent any major objections, we plan to update the policy as proposed and implement the web analytics tool immediately thereafter.Lest you think you are experiencing déjà vu, I indeed blogged about something similar back in February 2008 – the most notable difference this time around is that Google Analytics is not in the picture. Only Omniture is under consideration. So, here are the relevant docs.

• Current policy (dated Dec 2007)
• Revised Policy (dated Apr 2008)
  • Privacy Policy
  • Opt-Out Procedures
  • Third-Party Web Analytics Providers page

• An HTML diff between the Dec 2007 and the April 2008 versions

• A PDF diff between the Dec 2007 and the April 2008 versions
• A PDF diff between the Feb 2008 draft and the April 2008 version

Note that this policy change is only in effect for mozilla.com and associated web properties and does not change the existing Firefox privacy policy.

We encourage any questions, discussions and followups to the mozilla.governance mailing list and newsgroup.

Since the release of AMO 3.2, the AMO Team has been actively reviewing the variety of feedback from my blog, the webdev blog, madhava’s blog, the effervescent MozillaZine Forums and most noteably the reports coming into the AMO component in Bugzilla. Thank you so much for all the input and feedback. It’s refreshing to see so much care and attention being paid to AMO.

Morgamic posted an explanation of the rationale and trade-offs that we were trying to make with the new design. It has been a challenge for us to cater to the various audiences that AMO has – from first-time user to seasoned expert users to add-on authors/publishers.

To summarize the top concerns that we’ve heard:

• “You removed valuable information that we had previously“- application compatibility information, add-on modication dates, download counts (in selected views). This was far and away, the most pressing problem.
• “The new Smart Install button is dumb!” – advanced users were frustrated by the limitation that AMO placed and its inability to allow downloads of any version for testing purposes, etc..  This combined with the above issue along with some nasty bugs exacerbated the issue.
• “You removed two important add-on lists” – Bring back the New Add-ons and Recently Updated add-ons views
• “You combined some views in a way that makes it impossible to find Themes & Search Engines“. In an attempt to simplify the navigation and put everything into categories, we combined Themes with Apperance-related add-ons and Search Engines with Search-related add-ons. This was probably an oversimplification that caused grief to many.
• “Restore the discussions“. We opted to remove add-on discussions from the site but it was hasty. We’ll be adding them back in a way that allows flexibility for authors who want to host their own forums.

The community also reiterated some previously mentioned feature requests:

• Add an advanced search that lets me search by app max/min version range, platform, add-on type, etc…
• How to deal with the use case of “Should I upgrade to Fx 3 now – are my favorite add-ons compatible?”

One of the common misperceptions is that the AMO site now requires users to login to be able to install and download add-ons. This is certainly not the case for public add-ons. With this design, we surfaced sandbox’ed or experimental add-ons – those are the only ones requiring login since they are meant for users who know what they are getting into.

Note: There is certainly more feedback and requests and they are all been tracked in Bugzilla.

To address these, we will be publishing some updates to AMO which you’ll be able to see shortly at our preview site. The next iteration (AMO v3.2.1) is a minor bug fix release that we’ll roll out next week addressing some of the most critical bugs as well as easier access to download any version of an add-on. It’ll look something like this:

We’ll be following this AMO v3.2.1 bug fix release with a set of smaller scoped, milestone releases that address the top issues on our AMO v3.4 bug backlog.

The AMO team has been hard at work for the last many months on a major site redesign and is pleased to announce the availability of the new AMO site. This is a significant release and chock-full of goodies for end users and add-on authors alike. The focus has been predominantly to provide a visual refresh, simplify navigation and rework the add-on developer tools area. But that doesn’t quite capture just how much effort has gone into this release. So, here is a full rundown of all the changes.

What’s New in AMO 3.2?

Visual Identity & Navigation

• An easy-on-the-eye visual identity (called “Eco” for its soothing color) with new menus, buttons, drop-down lists, and site header
• Add-on categories available from all pages for easier navigation
• Quick links to dictionaries, themes & search engines
• More add-ons can be viewed per page (configurable for up to 100/page)
• Indicator status such as “experimental” (aka sandbox) or “recommended” is displayed
• An “Application” drop down menu for easy access to Thunderbird, SeaMonkey & Sunbird add-ons
• Experimental/Sandbox addons are shown even when a user is not logged in but installation requires login. Removed option for “include sandbox items” from user preference.

Smart Install Buttons

• As we are in a transition time between Firefox 2 and preparing for the release of Firefox 3, we’ve added OS platform and Firefox version detection to the “Add to Firefox” buttons that appear. So, depending upon the version of Firefox that you are using and the compatibility of the add-on, you’ll see one of the following:
• When an add-on is compatible with your version of Firefox, you’ll see

• When an add-on is only compatible with an older version of Firefox, you’ll see

• When an add-on is only compatible with a newer version of Firefox, you’ll see

• If the add-on is in the sandbox, it’ll be marked “experimental”, and you’ll need to login to install it

• For Thunderbird, add-on buttons indicate “Download Now” instead of “Add” to more accurately reflect what happens

Add-on Search

• About 50% of users come to AMO to search for a particular add-on. It used to be exceedingly difficult to do that. So, we’ve given the search box in this new design significant prominence.
• Ability to limit searches within categories
• The search result page now has install buttons (no need to go to the details page any more)
• Experimental (sandbox’ed) add-ons are now shown in search results and clearly marked (no need to switch between public and sandbox search any more)

Site Content

• Add-on download counts are now visible publicly to help users discover popular add-ons
• A revised ratings form with a new 5-point rating scale. (All previous add-on ratings have been adjusted accordingly.)
• A revamped add-on version history page (without Smart install buttons so that you can download add-ons for any Firefox version or OS platform)
• A new viewer for add-on images
• Massively revised dictionaries & language pack page with support for more than 60 languages.

Featured & Recommended Add-ons

• We’ve revamped how recommended add-ons work. In the past there was a single list of recommended add-ons that was available. From that list, one was randomly selected and featured on the AMO front page. As this list grew, there was less “exposure time” for each add-on and no filtering whatsoever.
• This revision of AMO introduces two new capabilities: featured add-ons and locale-specific targeting.
• Now, when an add-on is marked as recommended it is done so for a single category. The revised category pages include 2 “slots” where recommended add-ons will appear. See the Social & Communications category for an example. We will be increasing the number of recommended add-ons to accommodate these extra slots.
• Featured add-ons are a selection of recommended add-ons that are shown in one of 3 slots on the front page of AMO. Caegory recommended add-ons will be rotated on a regular basis onto the front page.
• We’ve also added per locale featured and recommended lists – this allows AMO editors and the Mozilla community to tailor AMO for particular locales
• Themes can also be recommended

Search Engines

• Revised search engines page (and added OpenSearch support)
• Support for search engine categorization
• Firefox search field integration on the search engine details pages. You can easily add search engines using the Firefox Search Engines menu

Discussions…Frozen

• Feedback from many add-ons authors indicated that they were dissatisfied with the discussion system on AMO, mostly because most authors already maintained a separate support forum elsewhere. mozillaZine Forums, MozDev forums or other. So, we’ve frozen all existing add-on discussions. Users can no longer add new topics but existing topics can be read. We’ll maintain the content for a few months and then eventually remove them.
• As a replacement for discussions, we’ve added new support forum URL & support email links for each add-on. Add-on authors should edit their add-ons and point to either a support email or a support forum location and AMO will link to there.
• Required Actions for add-ons authors: Determine a location for your support discussions and update your add-on please.

Developer Tools

• The ever clever Justin Scott was the brains behind the reworking of this area of AMO. He’s blogged about this earlier during the beta cycle.
• A new add-on dashboard with summary information (along with an RSS feed that you can subscribe to)
• Authors will also find beautiful, functional charts that graph both add-on active daily users (ADU) as well as total downloads
• The entire data history of the add-on from July 2007
• Graph zoom in/out and expand graph capabilities
• For active users, you can filter and chart by the versions of the add-on, by versions of Firefox, by addon status or by users’ operating system
• Add-on authors may choose to make their detailed statistics public – you can visit this link to see which add-ons have opted to do this
• Finally, you can export the data as a CSV in order to perform your own analysis

An amazing 24 languages!

• That’s right. From Albanian to Ukrainian, we’ve got your locale. Special thanks go out to the Mozilla web localizer community who did an incredible job to help us simultaneously launch this site with 24 languages!
• The list includes: Albanian, Basque, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish (Spain) and Ukrainian

This has been an incredible effort and lots of long hours by many groups. Please help me congratulate the entire dev, QA, UX, product, IT/Operations, AMO Editors and localization teams for helping make this a great release.

Enjoy!

For those that love detail – here’s a full list of fixes as tracked in Bugzilla

As an added encouragement to getting Firefox 3 compatibility for add-ons, Mozilla is giving away limited edition T-Shirts. Details about how to apply appear on Alex Polvi’s blog.

As mozilla.com (and our 20+ other sites such as AMO, MDC, etc…) have grown to be some of the top visited properties on the planet, we have maxed out the capabilities of our current web analytics solution. We needed to shift to a world-class, scalable option that has active development and innovative reporting and analytics. The new solution will help us better understand what our users are doing on our websites so that we can continuously improve their user experience.

Mozilla has selected Omniture and Google Analytics as additional web analytics solutions. The major difference between what Mozilla has today and these third-party solutions is that Omniture and Google Analytics are hosted web site services. In order to accommodate, we need to make some changes to our current website privacy policy, provide opt-out procedures and affect a minor change for SUMO’s Live Chat feature.

Below are the proposed changes to the mozilla.com privacy policy.

• Redlined markup of proposed changes (PDF format)
• Candidate new web site privacy policy & hosts file opt-out instructions
• Current web site privacy policy

Note that this policy change is only in effect for mozilla.com and associated web properties and does not change the existing Firefox privacy policy.

We encourage any questions, discussions and followups to the mozilla.governance mailing list and newsgroup.

Thanks.

This week AMO reached a pretty significant milestone – 600 Million add-ons delivered. Wow! There’s a great post on the Mozilla blog of metrics summarizing the results. That’s fresh downloads and doesn’t even include updates to add-ons being delivered on a regular basis.