Firefox/4/Beta

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The Firefox 4 Beta aims to engage 1M-4M users in an interactive process through which frequent updates are evaluated by a representative set of web users and their feedback shapes the direction of future development updates.

We will collect feedback through a variety of in-product and out-of-product mechanisms, and communicate the goals of each beta revision to users as it is delivered to them.

Goals

We have some. They are to be crisply defined!

You can also read about the background for this program.

Milestones

Milestone	Expected	Actual	Notes
Branch	tbd		Stabilize mozilla-central and create a mozilla-1.9.3 branch for Firefox 4
Freeze	tbd		Stabilize branch and complete work on all blocking1.9.3:beta1+ bugs
Ship Beta r1	Thursday, June 24		Ship first revision of beta, offer as advertised major update to 1.9.2 beta channel users
Freeze	tbd		Freeze for first beta update (need a better way to name these things)

Beta Features

The initial beta must be stable enough, and compelling enough, to convince users to switch to it as a daily use browser. It must also contain at least the initial expression of code changes which may have a large impact on:

• user experience
• web compatibility
• add-on compatibility

Beta r1

• [beta1 blockers ]
• [beta1 nom's ]

Summary	Owner	Priority	References	Status	Notes
Theme & UI (XP)	shorlander	P1	bug 544820	[ON TRACK]
Theme & UI (Vista)	shorlander	P1	bug 544820	[AT RISK]	not expecting to be able to draw in title bar (bug 513162) until week of June 21; can we speed that up?
Theme & UI (Win7)	shorlander	P1	bug 544820	[AT RISK]	not expecting to be able to draw in title bar (bug 513162) until week of June 21; can we speed that up?
Switch-to-Tab	Unfocused	P2	bug 480350	[DONE]
Add-Ons Manager Redesign	Mossop	P1	bug 461973	[DONE]	also includes EM API rewrite
:visited privacy fix	dbaron	P1	bug 147777	[DONE]
HTML5 Parser	hsivonen	P1	bug 373864	[DONE]	any outstanding regressions/blockers?
Web Sockets	smaug	P2	bug 472529	[ON TRACK]	no longer blocked on testsuite, just needs to land?
Out of Process Plugins	bsmedberg, josh (OSX)	P1	bug 478976	[ON TRACK]	might still have two icons when a plugin starts
Web Console	ddahl	P2	bug 529086	[ON TRACK]
Web Inspector	robcee	P2	bug 547453	[AT RISK]
Retained Layers	roc	P1	bug 564991	[AT RISK]	still under review
Graphics HW Acceleration	joe	P1	D2D: bug 569166	[MISSED]	D3D9 acceleration for some things done, D2D not done, needs Layers to land first
Test Pilot	jinghua	P1	bug tbd	[ON TRACK]	under review, also looking at how to package it
Add-On Compatibility Reporter	fligtar	P2	bug tbd	[ON TRACK]	blocked on 565610
OSX 10.6 build symbols	ted	P2	bug 567424 bug 558947	[AT RISK]
Multi-process crash reporting on mac	nobody	P2	bug 559228	[AT RISK]
Finish calc() and CSS transitions	dbaron	?	bug 363249, bug 537142	[AT RISK]	probably doesn't need to be in the first beta; listed together because finishing transitions is easier if it can depend on calc()

Beta Future

(coming soon, but basically everything else that's not in the above list)

Feedback Collection Mechanisms

Mechanism	Feedback On	Channel	Priority	Owner	Status
Test Pilot	Performance, Design, Surveys. W/ user demographic info.	Bundled	Beta r1	Jinghua	[ON TRACK]
Surveys	Design, Customer Sat., Messaging, Education	Test Pilot or Web	Beta r1	LMesa	[ON TRACK]
Beta website	N/A	N/A	Beta r1	LMesa	[ON TRACK]
Add-On Compatibility Reporter	Add-On Compatability	Beta Site/AMO/Bundled?	Beta r1	Fligtar	blocked on 565610
SUMO	Web Compat., UI, User Education	SUMO / Beta site	Beta r2+	Cheng
Input	Web Compat., Customer Sat., Add-On Compat.	Bundled	Beta r1	aakashd	[ON TRACK]
Bugzilla	Specific Bugs	BMO/Beta Site	Beta r1	?
Crash Reporter	Stability	Bundled	Beta r1		mac blocked on bug 559228
Twitter/FB	Customer Sat, Messaging, User Education	Beta Site	Beta r1	LMesa	[ON TRACK]
Forums (UserVoice, for developers)	Web Compat., Customer Sat.	MDN, Beta Site	Beta r1	LMesa/ CBlizzard	[ON TRACK]

Beta Outreach Program

Beta R1

Marketing

• Beta site core, aimed @ developers
  • 4 pages
    • Home Page/Download Page
    • Features Page (what we have and what's coming down the line --sync, account manager).
    • Feedback page
    • First Run page

Promotion

• Developer Feature screencasts/demos
• Ribbon Promotion of Test Pilot (after release of betav1)
  • Sent to Fx4 Beta users one week into the beta.
• FB Post for Test Drivers
• MDN
  • Promo on MDN
• Labs Post b/c of Test Pilot
  • Promo on labs website
• Add-ons promotion b/c of new Add-ons manager (TBD)
  • Promo on AMO

PR

• FAQs
• Blog Post (from Mike B)

L10N

• Localization of beta likely in 10-15 most active locales
  • Indonesia id
  • Brazil pt-BR
  • Germany de
  • India
  • Vietnam
  • United Kingdom en-GB
  • Philippines (no locale)
  • Malaysia (no locale)
  • Russia ru
  • Poland pl
  • Italy it
  • China zh-CN, zh-TW
  • Japan ja
  • Spain es-ES
  • Turkey
  • Argentina es-AR
• L10N of Surveys, Feedback channels (likely)

Beta R2 and Beyond

Marketing

• Creative Campaign
• Beta site content for mainstream users added
  • FAQ
  • What's new page
  • Features Page (more consumer content)
  • Feedback Page
  • New First Run Page
  • Spread the Word page
  • Multimedia Page (for videos/screencasts, but only if needed)

Promotion

• "Invitations" to use the Beta
• FB Posts to General FB pages
• Campus Reps
• Promos on "What's New" pages.
• Affiliate Buttons
• Spread Firefox
  • Home Page Promo
• Email Program
• Dubbable General Video (for l10n--V3?)
• Screencasts for new developer and user facing features
• Labs
  • Promo
• AMO
  • Promo

PR

• Reviewer's Guide (Abridged)
• Blog Post(s) from Mike B

L10N

• L10N of beta site in 10-15 locales, with others joining as we roll through the beta (likely) (V2/V3)