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Firefox/Features/Installers: Difference between revisions
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There are a number of issues here to discuss. | There are a number of issues here to discuss. | ||
1. If a user | '''1.''' If a user installs Aurora from the download page, then uses the channel switcher to switch to Beta, on Mac the logo changes to the Firefox icon but the text will forever show Aurora. On Windows, we get the same behavior but all shortcuts will also show Aurora as the name although it's not. | ||
* There is a bug here where the logo doesn't always change but we don't exactly know how to fix it. | * There is a mac specific bug here where the logo doesn't always change but we don't exactly know how to fix it - [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=654853 Bug 654853] | ||
* Based on today's implementation, if the user started out with a Beta or Release build and channel switched to Aurora, the icon would change but the text would say Firefox in both scenarios. Not as confusing as going from Aurora->Release but not great. | * Based on today's implementation, if the user started out with a Beta or Release build and channel switched to Aurora, the icon would change but the text would say Firefox in both scenarios. Not as confusing as going from Aurora->Release but not great either. | ||
2. There are a few options to solve the above problem... | '''2.''' There are a few options to solve the above problem... | ||
* a) All channels could be installed as Firefox. If the app name were Firefox.app for everything and we wouldn't end up in a situation where the text, short cuts or app name was out of sync with the thing we are running. | * '''a)''' All channels could be installed as Firefox. If the app name were Firefox.app for everything and we wouldn't end up in a situation where the text, short cuts or app name was out of sync with the thing we are running. | ||
** On Mac: If all channels were installed as Firefox.app then installing with normal dmg method to Applications will overwrite existing installations (Aurora, Beta, Release). | ** On Mac: If all channels were installed as Firefox.app then installing with normal dmg method to Applications will overwrite existing installations (Aurora, Beta, Release). | ||
** On Windows: If all channels were installed as Firefox.app then the standard install method will overwrite the existing install. This is not problematic since the advanced install allows the user to select the install directory. We would also need to provide an option to name the shortcuts during an advanced install so the shortcut doesn't overwrite existing shortcuts. | ** On Windows: If all channels were installed as Firefox.app then the standard install method will overwrite the existing install. This is not problematic since the advanced install allows the user to select the install directory. We would also need to provide an option to name the shortcuts during an advanced install so the shortcut doesn't overwrite existing shortcuts. From what I understand, this is not a trivial amount of work. | ||
* b) We could try and change the text to be consistent with the thing we are running ie: change from Aurora to Firefox. | * '''b)''' We could try and change the text to be consistent with the thing we are running ie: change from Aurora to Firefox. | ||
** On Mac: We run into 2 problems. We can't actually change the Aurora.app name to Firefox.app IF there is another Firefox.app in the Applications directory, which is probably likely. We would also NOT be able to change this for any secondary users since we do not have access to their doc configuration files. | ** On Mac: We run into 2 problems. We can't actually change the Aurora.app name to Firefox.app IF there is another Firefox.app in the Applications directory, which is probably likely. We would also NOT be able to change this for any secondary users since we do not have access to their doc configuration files. | ||
* c) We could do nothing. This basically means that for the exact use case where users start out with the Aurora channel and channel switch, they end up in a very confusing situation. This would happen on both Windows and Mac but may be a very small set of users and largely an edge case. In the more likely scenario, they would start from Beta and Release, they would simply see everything as Firefox. | ** On Windows: | ||
*''' c)''' We could do nothing. This basically means that for the exact use case where users start out with the Aurora channel and channel switch, they end up in a very confusing situation. This would happen on both Windows and Mac but may be a very small set of users and largely an edge case. In the more likely scenario, they would start from Beta and Release, they would simply see everything as Firefox. On the other hand, we are promoting the channel changer as a feature for this release so we draw attention to this use case. | |||
3. Currently we use the same app name and logo between Beta and Release. This decision was made for several reasons. Firstly, it minimizes release risks. We have an option NOT to rebuild the app. AV or other 3rd parties may look for "Firefox" versus "Firefox Beta" or the reversed. Having different app names can invalidate a lot of testing depending on the way 3rd party vendors interact with Firefox. Any changes between beta and release have the opportunity to cause regressions or interact differently with 3rd parties. Because going to release is an atomic operation, there is no time to really test these and changes have the potential to invalidate all the testing we have already done (as that testing was under different variables). | '''3.''' Currently we use the same app name and logo between Beta and Release. This decision was made for several reasons. Firstly, it minimizes release risks. We have an option NOT to rebuild the app. AV or other 3rd parties may look for "Firefox" versus "Firefox Beta" or the reversed. Having different app names can invalidate a lot of testing depending on the way 3rd party vendors interact with Firefox. Any changes between beta and release have the opportunity to cause regressions or interact differently with 3rd parties. Because going to release is an atomic operation, there is no time to really test these and changes have the potential to invalidate all the testing we have already done (as that testing was under different variables). The consequences here are that we can brand the start-up page, the about box and perhaps use a different logo but the application name has to stay the same. | ||
'''4.''' There is somewhat of an inconsistency by using the same app name for Beta and Release but not Aurora. This in itself creates some issues. If we are going to use Firefox for Beta and Release, why not do it for Aurora and then we can largely get rid of the problem in point #1. | |||
* One of the motivators for keeping it this way was to enable side-by-side installs for web developers. | |||
* I did some digging into this and had trouble finding out the usage scenarios associated with these people. Imagine 5.0 has been released. It seems that web developers will probably be running a previous build (4.0.1), a current build (5.0) and maybe a Beta build (6.0b). In this case, all of these would have the app name Firefox.app and they would have to put them in different directories in order to run them side-by-side using different profiles anyhow. We have made a change since FF4 and both the Beta and Release have the same app name. If they are in the same directory, they will replace each other when you install. | |||
* In this case, it might be worth changing Aurora to Firefox.app as well but then we lose that "branding" aspect. | |||