alex.polvi.net

Based on feedback from last weeks report, I’m going to change how we do this. I’m going to go through the status of the top 10 add-ons that are not yet on addons.mozilla.org with Firefox 3 compatibility.

Skype Toolbar for Firefox - 2.0.0.* (bug) - beta available over on skype’s website, not sure when it will land on AMO.

Firebug - 2.0.0.* (bug) - Platform/Firefox issues resolved, now blocked on Firebug performance issues that will be resolved in the Firebug 1.2 b1 release.

Tab Mix Plus - 3.0a5 (bug) - still no direct contact with the developer. On the development forums, there are working releases. However, if you know anyone in the TMP community updates, help is appreciated! We really want TMP to be ready for Firefox 3.

Noia 2.0 (eXtreme) - 2.0.0.* (bug) - Our status indicates that this will land with Firefox 3. Any further information would be appreciated.

FireFTP - 2.0.0.* (bug) - compatible on the development website, but no direct contact with the developer. Looks ready, but still not on AMO, and we have no idea why not.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer - 2.0.0.* (bug) - beta on dev website. No direct contact with developers.

FoxyTunes - 2.0.0.* (bug) - beta in the works, but have not seen it. We have had direct contact with the developer, but still have not seen the .xpi on AMO.

Blue Ice - 2.0.0.* (bug) - development homepage says “coming soon”. Limited contact with developer. No known available betas.

RedShift V2 RC1 - 2.0.0.* (bug) - comments on AMO indicate it is in the works, limited contact with the developer. Help appreciated finding out the current status!

PicLens - 2.0.0.* (bug) - beta available on the beta site. Not sure when it will be on AMO.

In summary, all of the top 10 not-yet-compatible add-ons have some sort of hint that a Firefox 3 compatible release is on its way. If you have any updates about RedShift, Blue Ice, TMP, or FireFTP, please let me know!

Remember those shirt we promised to add-on developers for updating to Firefox 3? Looks like people are starting to get them…

Preface: There is a lot of tracking going on with regards to what add-ons are up to date. I’m going to try to keep a regular discussion going about the current status, hang-ups, and wish list of add-ons compatible with Firefox 3. With that, here goes the first edition of the “State of the add-ons report”.

AMO add-on compatibility
Addons.mozilla.org is currently allowing developers to mark their add-ons compatible with 3.0pre. 3.0 will be available in when RC1 is released, which is expected late April, or early May.

Top 95% compatibility
We are currently at 60% compatibility (by usage, of the top 95% of addons), 80% if we count add-ons that we know are in the works. See our compatibility chart for latest info.

Top add-on we wish was available
PicLens. PicLens has roughly 500,000 daily users, but is only compatible with 2.0.0.*. Help by sending feedback, or updating the bug, encouraging the PicLens development team to update to 3.0.

[UPDATE: the tracking bug says there is a beta in the works! no word on ETA yet]

Feel free to nominate next week’s in the comments.

Top add-on we are worried about
Tab Mix Plus. We’ve seen traffic on TMP development forums, but no word of when it will be released on addons.mozilla.org. Please comment on any news in the tracking bug.

Feel free to nominate next week’s in the comments.

Top add-on that is on its way
Firebug. Yes, that’s right, Firebug is getting close to compatibility. Find out and help at the tracking bug. In fact, Firebug is currently blocking the Firefox 3 release — meaning we will not release Firefox 3 without it up to date.

Feel free to nominate next week’s in the comments.

Other news
Adblock (not Adblock Plus, which is ready for prime time), is not going to be updated to Firefox 3. In the tracking bug, we’re trying to figure out if we should update all the Adblock users to Adblock Plus. Should we? Or should we just let the add-on die? Weigh in to a solution after reading the tracking bug.

That concludes this state of the add-ons report. I would really appreciate feedback into format, content, and overall message. Thanks!

Woohoo! After my last post, and a few additional users, we now have over 500 unique favicons in the favicon collection. I think if we can push through 1000 favicons, we will have the largest favicon collection on the internet.

If you would like to help add to the collection, install the Firefox 3 add-on.

This project has been a good skill-set tester… as it has required me to hack in Javascript/XUL, Firefox 3 apis (devmo++), google app engine, python, and django. If you find any bugs while interacting with this sausage factory, please be sure to file a bug on my google code project.

I really like favicons. So, I created a Firefox 3 add-on that sends all my favicons to a web service. Then, the stars aligned, and google released app engine. Now we’re enabled to collect all the favicons in the world. But I cannot do it alone, I need your help.

You can see the progress here. If you want to add favicons that you encounter (in Firefox 3), please see this page.

The add-on is alpha alpha alpha, so please let me know if you run into any issues.

… because I donated $200.

Along with a weak attempt at trumping the blizz, it will help Miro sustain. These amazing folks are out trying to liberate media. They are taking the control of our daily impression away from empires and enabling us all to get our message out. And they all do it while living together in a giant house on barely any resources. Hooorraaahhh.

Anyone else willing to match Chris Blizzard or myself? Please donate now, they really need the help.

Here are some of my favorite channels I’ve found only because of Miro.

• therealnews - a daily, independent, news segment.
• Global Pulse - they take a topic (weekly) and report it from various media outlets around the world. US v. Iran? See how it is reported from China, Russia, and the US — only a *few* differences…
• Shralp! Snowboarding - always great to watch people hucking off mountain tops with your neighbors on the plane
• A-Z of bushcraft - P is for plants, S is for spoon… check out how to be useful post-apocalypse

I <3 Miro. If you do too, now is the time to show a little love.

There are a couple stories here — but the main one is that my Aunty M’s Firefox sculpture made it into Wired!

My Aunt Margaret is an artist from Loxahatchee, Florida — where she runs Goodhaven Farms. On top of Firefox art, she sculpts and paints. Check out her art, including a web page I made 6 years ago, here.

Hmm… maybe I need to ask her to send another piece of art to the office….