alex.polvi.net

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.

… 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….

Tomorrow, March 18th, is the deadline for getting your add-on developer shirt. Just a reminder, you are eligible for the shirt if your add-on is on addons.mozilla.org (even in the sandbox) and has Firefox 3 beta 4 support.

You will find the sign-up form on the AMO developer control panel as a link entitled “T-Shirt Request”.

Have an extension on AMO? Does it work with Firefox 3? If so, head on over to AMO and claim your Add-ons Developer t-shirt (also available under Developer Tools > T-Shirt Request). If your extension is not currently compatible, you have until March 18th (that’s the sign-up deadline, not the Firefox 3 release date) to claim the swag. Also, if your add-on was developed by a team and you need more than one shirt, please contact us and we’ll do our best to make arrangements.

If you need help getting compatible, I recommend checking out developer.mozilla.org or hitting #extdev on irc.mozilla.org. There are talented contributors willing to help, just need to ask.

As an extra special thank you, if your add-on is one of the top 50 most used add-ons by Firefox 3 users on the Firefox 3 release day, Mozilla will offer to sponsor (for an amount we will determine) a party for you and your friends. That is, Mozilla will chip in for you and your friends to celebrate your tools success! Mozilla will be in contact with the top add-ons shortly after the Firefox 3 release.

Thank you to everyone who has developed an add-on!

We (mozilla) are hosting a hacking social related to being an editor on AMO. Open to the interested public! See you there!

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/414566/

One of my non-metrics related tasks is to work with chofmann on Firefox 3 extension compatibility. This involves out reaching to developers, tracking tons of bugs, and playing santa (free stuff, woo!) for all the awesome extension creators.

We’ve set a goal to get 95% (by usage) of extensions ready for Firefox 3 by ship date. I’ve posted the current status over at the metrics blog…

Just had to share this… LOTS more soon!