Firefox3/Firefox Requirements Meetings/Content Handling

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« Firefox Requirements Meetings

Dial-in Info

  • +1 650-215-1282x91 Conf# 8602 (US/INTL)
  • +1 800-707-2533 (pin 369) Conf# 8602

Agenda

The following list is taken directly from the Firefox 3 Detailed Feature List. If this list does not match the other, the Google Spreadsheet version takes precedence (I may have made a copying error).

  • P1 - Improve content handling, add support for web services to act as content handlers
    • P1 FR - Support web services as MIME type handlers
    • P1 FR - Remove local MIME type database for local applications
    • P1 NFR - Simplify content handling UI
    • P1 NFR - Create an easy-to-use MIME type handling configuration system
  • P1 - Robust plugin support for Flash, Acrobat, WMV, Quicktime, Java
    • P1 FR - Should be able to play all popular media formats when plugins/codecs are installed
    • P1 FR - Embedded rich content areas should function when plugins are installed
    • P1 FR - It should be easy to locate and install missing plugins
    • P1 NFR - Plugin crashes should not crash the entire application
  • P2 - Improve download handling across multiple sessions
    • P2 FR - Support pause/resume for downloads
  • P2 - Microformat detection framework
    • P2 FR - Create document-parsing framework for detecting microformats
    • P2 FR - Create API for developers to leverage this framework
  • P2 - Microformat handling
    • P2 FR - Display microformats in content area
    • P2 FR - Allow user to configure microformat handlers
    • P2 FR - Support hCard, hCal, and geo
    • P2 FR - Provide API/Data format for adding additional microformat types
    • P2 FR - Allow web developers to override microformat display attributes
    • P2 NFR - Must not affect page load time
  • P3 - Extended download history management
    • P3 NFR - Easier retrieval of files that a user has downloaded in the past
    • P3 NFR - Simplified (non-modal?) UI for managing downloads
  • Px - Revised downloads manager
  • Px - Add new microformat detectors
  • Px - Register new microformat handlers

Note

Item

  • P1 - Improve content handling, add support for web services to act as content handlers
    • P1 FR - Support web services as MIME type handlers
    • P1 FR - Remove local MIME type database for local applications
    • P1 NFR - Simplify content handling UI
    • P1 NFR - Create an easy-to-use MIME type handling configuration system

Notes

  • "Remove local MIME type..." - change to "minimize/remove" - this actually means that we'll pass it up to the OS rather than directly to an application. Seems fine as-is.
  • "Simplify content handling UI" - is ugly, needs to be less ugly. Leave as-is.
  • ADD: "P3 FR Ability to show or sniff content on demand and view in plaintext or html or somesuch instead" -- find a non-scary way to present that to users.

Item

  • P1 - Robust plugin support for Flash, Acrobat, WMV, Quicktime, Java
    • P1 FR - Should be able to play all popular media formats when plugins/codecs are installed
    • P1 FR - Embedded rich content areas should function when plugins are installed
    • P1 FR - It should be easy to locate and install missing plugins
    • P1 NFR - Plugin crashes should not crash the entire application

Notes

  • "Play all popular media formats when plugins are installed" - Yep. This line item is here to very carefully track and ensure we do these things. Will not ship without it.
    • Is this a cross-platform requirement? Acrobat on Linux, VLC on Linux, etc.?
    • ACTION & ADD: "P1 NFR Support all platforms with this as best we can"
    • Is there a functional requirement that users can play media files without installing additional software? IE: should we be investigating bundling. Further investigate the bundling options and possibilities.
  • "Embedded rich content areas should function when plugins are installed..." - Not entirely sure what this means. Move to DELETE as it's not useful as written.
  • "Make it easy to locate and install missing plugins" - CHANGE to NFR,
    • Vista-specific issue with plugin installation, but this req is a little more general than that and refers specifically (?) to the plugin finder service.
    • Not really the PFS...
    • Not sure if we can truly solve this ourselves. "Make it possible for a well-behaved plugin author to do the right thing" - facilitate the installation of plugins. Stays a P1
  • "Plugin crashes should not crash the entire application"
    • This is a huge, hairy task. Worthy of investigation to be sure, but...probably not a P1 if we want to ship Firefox3 this year. Is this an actionable NFR? This is probably not doable. There are some things we can do to make plugins less of a risk, but there's not a whole lot we can do when a plugin actually crashes. REPHRASE: "Identify ways to mitigate plugin crashes." CHANGE: to P2.
    • We do not currently have the engineers in place to do this.
    • ENSURE THAT THIS IS ADDED TO MOZ 2: Add this to Mozilla2 to ensure it's tracked outside of this process.
    • If we want this for Moz2 we should get this under development ASAP so we can get it landed and in testing ASAP. This needs a whole release cycle to get into any sort of shape that we want to ship.
  • "Improve dload handling"
    • Pause/resume = yay!
    • This will definitely require support on the Gecko side. We need to investigate with the Platform team. REQUIRES FOLLOWUP
  • NEW! What about a pluggable download manager?
    • Lots of design implications, possible security implications.
    • Need to have a dload manager that handles more than FTP and HTTP.
    • Possible just need to add protocol handlers. Current architecture is amenable to it, just no one's done the work to add it...
    • ADD: "Px FR Download manager can be extended in a way that feels tightly integrated" - including passing off to third party apps
    • Requires further investigation and discussion - FOLLOW UP REQUIRED
  • P2 - Revised downloads manager
    • Lots of ideas thrown around for this - this is a very generic catch-all for a bunch of different possible FRs.
    • Current dload manager is clunky
    • Express this as "PX FR "
    • Use case: keep a long-running history of downloads
    • Use case: clean up my downloads area
    • Use case: assign handlers for "Open with..." or "Send to..."
    • Figure out WTF people do with the dload manager window and make it suck less.
  • ADD: "P2 FR Integrate download manager with third party virus scanners and malware protection"

Item

  • P3 - Extended download history management
    • P3 NFR - Easier retrieval of files that a user has downloaded in the past
    • P3 NFR - Simplified (non-modal?) UI for managing downloads

Notes

  • "non-modal" = not window

Item

  • P2 - Improve download handling across multiple sessions
    • P2 FR - Support pause/resume for downloads

Notes

  • OK - leave as-is

Item

  • P2 - Microformat detection framework
    • P2 FR - Create document-parsing framework for detecting microformats
    • P2 FR - Create API for developers to leverage this framework

Notes

  • OK - leave as-is. This is backend stuff.

Item

  • P2 - Microformat handling
    • P2 FR - Display microformats in content area
    • P2 FR - Allow user to configure microformat handlers
    • P2 FR - Support hCard, hCal, and geo
    • P2 FR - Provide API/Data format for adding additional microformat types
    • P2 FR - Allow web developers to override microformat display attributes
    • P2 NFR - Must not affect page load time

Notes

  • This is the front-end stuff.
  • First stage is Detection
  • Next stage is Notification & Display
  • Third stage is Manipulation & Dispatch - this is a harder problem that we don't know how to do yet.
  • Should this just be strict microformats or a more generalizable system of inferred pieces of data, meta-data, etc. "Any type of structured information available in the page"
  • Aiming at increasing awareness at the end user level as well as the API level.
  • Detection stays as-is
  • Split "Handling" into Notification+Display and Manipulation+Dispatch
  • Notification = Px
  • Manipulation = PF ?
  • STRUCTURED DATA, NOT MICROFORMATS
  • This requires further investigation and follow up, including a revamp of the NFRs/FRs

Item

  • Px - Add new microformat detectors

Notes

  • This is covered in the previous topic

Item

  • Px - Register new microformat handlers

Notes

  • This is also covered in the previous topic

Further Additions

  • ADD to first section "FR Properly handle streaming content types - embedded or handed off to a helper app" - Priority??
  • RSS enclosure handling -- what to do with videos, photos, etc.? Hand off to third-party programs. This is currently a mess.