Summit2008/Sessions/Proposals/Add-on Manager/Session Notes

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These are some notes from Mossop's Add-ons Management session:

  • Add-on Locale Packs
    • AMO should allow you to add a new localization without requiring a new version and process
    • Testing is an issue, esp. with l10n
    • Allow locale packs to be "auto updates"
    • What are the restrictions for the locale packs?
    • Should we allow locale packs to be downloaded from non-AMO sites?
    • How do we handle updates to add-ons which don't have a locale pack available. (See add-on dependency stuff).
    • Possibly offer fallbacks - not good for chrome systems (DTD can't do it but property files can).
  • Dependency resolution
    • First request - show the dependency
    • Automatic dependency resolution (trying to eliminate multiple restarts)
    • AMO should reflect add-on dependencies
    • AMO sees the dependency at the system level and dynamic generation of AMO (AMO may need to see what is already installed). Client might ignore it.
  • Conflict Resolution
    • Everyone will start blocking a list of a series of extensions
    • Without it, it incentivizes add-ons authors to disable other authors
  • Install without Restart
    • Perhaps close and restart a window?
    • Remember that you need to support more than the Firefox app (these apps don't have session restore as a saving grace)
    • Encourage folks to use dynamic overlays
    • Perhaps allow sandboxing of add-ons based on what they do. Create widgets or limited capability add-ons.
    • Flipping a flag that allows add-on authors to claim "Needs a restart" might have detrimental effects
    • Allow profile version management (to allow testing of add-ons) similar to Vista/XP's snapshot/restore (and Firefox's bookmarks restore), etc...
  • Install/Uninstall Hooks
    • Allow a callback per extension
    • uninstall.rdf
    • Notifications are too confusing and unreliable
    • Allow it to work even in safe mode
  • Replace RDF
    • XML-based format potentially
    • We can validate the XML
    • Lots of good developer tools out there already
    • Not much harder to work with XML
    • Do we support reading the old RDFs? Yes
    • Do we need to support reading the old update.rdf? Yes


  • UI Changes
    • Can you write extensions that modify your add-ons tab
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