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Update:Remora Feedback

Revision as of 17:49, 27 January 2007 by Xeen (talk | contribs) (→‎xeen's comments)

Alpha Feedback - http://preview.addons.mozilla.org

This page is for consolidation of the feedback on the new AMO Alpha. If you're more comfortable filing bugs, you're welcome to do that instead.

See also the announcement on the Mozilla webdev blog.

The feedback (bugs, suggestions) that we fixed/dealt with were moved to a reference page.

fligtar's comments

I like the overall look, but I have a few comments about certain aspects:

  • The discussion header/footer is noticeably different.
  • Discussions show a CakePHP favicon for me
  • This may be a vanilla bug, not sure: "Comment by made 1 day ago days ago"
    • That was a l10n bug and is likely to be still present in different languages due to a l10n tag inconsistency in the vanilla code. I fixed it in English and German, though. --wenzel 18:44, 16 January 2007 (PST)
  • 08:27 <@fligtar|afk> i don't feel like going to the wiki right now, but the user info page is missing the author's name in 3 places, namely "User info for" and "Add-ons by" and the page title
    • The user info page is not missing anything: The nickname is displayed in the places you mentioned. (Just like amo v2 did). Are you suggesting to use the full name instead? --wenzel 13:56, 18 January 2007 (PST)

clouserw's comments

  • Old URLs should redirect into the new format so we don't get 404s (bug 362526)
  • Pages should validate
  • Discussions can be started that aren't related to an addon (just click "discussions" in the header, then start a new topic)
  • The "More..." link under "Popular Extensions" on the browse page goes nowhere.
  • Since search engines are addons now, if you type a search engine id into the URL, you get a really ugly display page

wenzel's comments

  • Browse Category page has a "more" link for new and updated add-ons which leads to the new add-ons RSS feed (atm it's even a 404); it should maybe lead to a new page showing the new add-ons for this category only.
  • Browse Add-ons page could use category specific RSS feeds.
  • Search algorithm is improvable: The binary matching creates many hits with the same score in spite of their obviously different relevance.
  • "find similar add-ons" sometimes shows different categories with the same name? (example)

xeen's comments

  • Extension summaries should be limited to a certain length so that we don't have 2 pages description when browsing extensions. I kind-of see this when looking at the extension's page where the same description appears twice. Is this supposed to be "long" and "short" description?
    • Yes, it is: That it's the same text is an import issue from amo v2; in the future, the first text will be a very short tagline, and the second text is a more extensive description of the add-on. --wenzel 16:06, 17 January 2007 (PST)
  • I'm asked to log-in when I want to view an extensions details?!

dria's comments

  • Seems to be a bug at [1] when not logged in. At very least there should be a significantly friendlier message suggesting the user log in :)


jMax's comments (from blog)

  • The add-on licenses should be exposed, so the user knows what he's about to install.


Dao's comments

  • I don't see how the user is expected to find, say, Thunderbird extensions. AMO2 was too Firefox-centric, AMO3 seems even worse. http://www.erweiterungen.de/ does this better.

=> answer from cameleon : I fill the Bug 367574 – Ability to filter search of an Add-ons by application (Firefox or Thunderbird) on bugzilla about this problem. [2]

DonGato's comments

  • 'Welcome to Mozilla add-ons' should stand up more in design but not space. Currently is taking a lot of space and not being necessarily clear.
  • Doesn't discussion header looks bad? I think a right and left border is needed.

trev's comments

  • Default Locale field on /developers/add seems to encode entities twice, e.g. I see Fran&#231;ais there
  • If you don't select the addon type, you will get a second message: "That file extension (.xpi) is not allowed for the selected add-on type." That pretty pointless.
  • Having to re-upload files on errors is not nice at all. Files should be kept and the input field should be replaced by the file name to indicate that they are already there.
  • Isn't it possible to detect add-on type automatically? The file will need to be unpacked and analyzed anyway.
  • When I fill out all fields correctly I get the error "Could not move file". Stuck at step 1.

Please remember that the Developer Pages are not a part of the alpha preview and bugs/issues with them should be saved until the beta if they still exist.

pascalc's comments

  • on the right sidebar menu, the "Build your own" link should point to the localized version of the documentation (http://developer.mozilla.org/{locale}/docs/Extensions) if it exists
    • I agree. But I wonder how we can find out if it exists, before making the link. --wenzel 10:24, 16 January 2007 (PST)
    • The Extension part of the link is usually translated. So, there is no way how to do this automatically. I would go with 'http://developer.mozilla.org' . _('sidebar_navlink_build_your_own_href') The same issue is with Creating_OpenSearch_plugins_for_Firefox at search engines page. --Pawell 21 January 2007
  • Website ignores Thunderbird, the front page should at least say "Add-ons extend Firefox and Thunderbird..." and not only Firefox
    • Thank you. Multi-app support is definitely planned however not yet supported in the alpha version. --wenzel 19:50, 18 January 2007 (PST)

LCaution's comments (from blog)

  • I’d like to have an option to display items with a one-line description. Display a simple, hyperlinked list, in alphabetical order, with the name of the extension/theme/whatever and a one-sentence description of what it does. Click on the one-liner and a new tab opens to a page with a full description, comments, download, etc.

Omnisilver's comments (from blog)

  • Create a page with microformats (or use microformats in the app, at least)

RenegadeX's comments

It's hard to test the Preview site properly with the limited # of addons currently added, but I 2nd everything already said on this page. Have you guys learnt nothing over 3+ revisions of AMO? Users are tearing out their hair crying, "All I want to do is find a specific addon or browse the mass of addons quickly and easily" - and yet with each AMO revision, it continues to be a frustrating experience:

  • Broken: Similar to above, the "Subscribe to this Category" RSS Link points to a feed URL such as http://preview.addons.mozilla.org/addons/rss/categories/13 - when it follows that it should be "/1/13". Interestingly, '13' and '1/13' both have stuff in them, category 1035 and category 1017 respectively. That's somewhat confusing, especially as the RSS feed does not have an identifiable-by-name name..
  • On an Extension(or Theme)'s page, you have the Extension Name followed by Version# on the same line (good to see it back, thanks - v2 was not good). Further down the page you have Version# and timestamp, which is thus partially redundant & a waste of space. Suggestion: go back to something closer to v1's implementation (screenshot) which put it all at the top. Clean it up a little by putting the 'released on..' on its own line.
  • Ditto the above - move it up, on the other listing pages (such as Recommended Add-ons).
  • (And echoing 'Gijs' - what's that little icon before "Version" for?)
    • It's a style element. --wenzel 19:59, 18 January 2007 (PST)
  • Where is "Previous Versions" link?
  • Where is the Rating for extensions and themes? These were important to the user in helping decide what extensions were worthwhile installing! Sure the numbers got skewed - but that was because of a poorly-thought-out Feedback/Comment system that forced users to leave a rating with a comment, and didn't allow users to edit their rating (see IMDB, perhaps?). You should have fixed the problems, rather than take the whole thing away. Is this progress? No.
    • There are reviews you can add, and you can edit your rating as well. Also, we moved discussions into the discussion forums while reviews are now meant for rating the add-on only. --wenzel 12:47, 17 January 2007 (PST)
  • Why no Dictionaries link in the Menu? v2 never included it (to coincide with Firefox 2.0's introduction of the built-in spell-checker). Do that, and include a link to the Dictionaries extension Category on it, and vice-versa.
  • Still no 'Browse All/Browse by letter' feature. This is sorely needed.
    • We have a "browse all" feature now (in trunk). --wenzel 18:29, 19 January 2007 (PST)

I could easily go on with my list but this is getting depressing. This thing was meant to be an improvement, was it not? Come on, this shouldn't be this difficult!' RenegadeX 04:26, 17 January 2007 (PST)

  • Thank you for your extensive feedback. That helps us a lot to make Remora better. Regarding your "improvement" question: Keep in mind that the current public preview is still an "alpha" version. It is, almost by definition, incomplete, sometimes buggy, has rough edges and is far away from perfect -- or from its final state, for that matter. Therefore it is important that you tell us what you like, and what you don't, so you can influence how Remora will look and feel like when it's done. --wenzel 11:19, 17 January 2007 (PST)

Yoko's comments

  • The plugins must be selected by UA of browser (linux's users not see the Windows plugins) as for the official Firefox web page.
  • The langage must be too selected by the UA.
    • it is, or it should be, at least. Doesn't that work for you? --wenzel 12:19, 20 January 2007 (PST)
      • I'm sorry, I don't has the Firefox's UA (but Epiphany UA). I'm really sorry for this.
  • The thunderbird's and nvu's extensions are not very easy at find.

Moe's comments (from blog)

Ah, just wrote this as a comment to an older entry but this was supposed to be a comment on the current design. So here it goes again:

I don’t really like the new design, because

  • too much design, too few information. A lot of blank and wasted space
  • No separation between products. What if I’m only interested in Thunderbird?
  • Probably still no way to list a lot of extensions with short descriptions to get an overview. Too much clicking, too much wasted time.
  • Filesize would be nice, at least on the details page
    • It's there, above the release notes. --wenzel 12:35, 20 January 2007 (PST)
  • No releasedate information
    • What do you mean? Of course there is. In each list, like this one, for example, there are release dates. --wenzel 12:35, 20 January 2007 (PST)

Generally spoken: this goes solely in the direction “fancy” but it should mainly go in the direction “userfriendly” and “informative” (nothing against fancy, of course).

Dolske's comments

Overall it's looking good! Here are my comments:

  • Adblock got featured on the front page for one page load, but the preview image just says "1145".
  • The little orange arrow in the green "install now" link looks too much like a UI element, implying a dropdown menu there.
  • "Mozilla is providing links to these applications as a courtesy, and makes no representations regarding the applications or any information related there to." Given the legalese disclaimer, is "We Recommend" ok to say? The disclaimer in the footer also seems to be forced to 3 centered lines. Can this be flowed like normal text, non-centered, so it doesn't take up so much space?
  • The Browse page linked from the right-hand navigation bar seems awkward. It only lists extensions and themes; no dictionaries, plugins, or search engines. But still, "Browse" seems a misfitting title for this page, since I'm not able to browse anything. Maybe "Other Addons" or "More Addons", since it's in proximity to "Recommended Addons"?
  • Can "Recommended Addons" be things other than extensions? If so, things at this level should be identified as to why type of addon they are.
  • The "Dictionaries" link on the right is a 404. Empty theme categories give just a plain "No addons in this category" page.
  • The "Search Engines" page is inconsistent with the other top-level addon-type pages (should be a list of categories). Will Remora be incorporating the Mycroft content?
  • Plugins... Oh boy. Entries should look like other addons (formatting, download button, etc.). Can we do OS detection here (like extensions?) and provide a single appropriate link? The links to plugindoc.mozdev.org should go elsewhere (wiki.m.o?). Mozdev isn't the right place for this kind of content. It might be worth considering giving each plugin its own page, and have the top-level plugins page list them (in a format similar to the categories on other top-level addon-type pages). Not to be a Suite hater, but the Mozilla Suite doesn't need to be mentioned here.
  • The list of extension (and theme) categories seems to be in a random order. Please sort.
  • Simplify the extension details by dropping the time-of-day, and round the size to the nearest KB. "Version 2.89 — November 3, 2006, 1:28 pm — 171 Bytes" becomes "Version 2.89 - November 3, 2006 - 1KB". [Alternatively, drop the time-of-day if the date is more than a week old.] The version doesn't need to be shown both here and in the extension title (at the top of the page). Looks like a bug with the size, as everything seems to be about 200 bytes.
  • I mentioned this last time, but it isn't clear how a category with lots of entries is going to show them all. Just a big pile of links at the bottom of the page? It might be helpful to add a 10 or 20 items in some category, so that the UI can be evaluated.
  • "View Previous Releases" for an addon is 404.
  • s/Add a review/Add your review/? If there are no reviews, be a little more verbose, eg "No reviews for this addon -- add your review". (Doing this on a single line avoids a bunch of white space for unreviewed addons).
  • Ditto the above for comments. The difference between comments and discussions isn't very clear. A better format might be (ignore Wiki's whitespace):
Discussions
This thing is awesome
(2 replies, last by SomeGuy on December 3rd)
This thing sucks
(no replies, posted by SomeGal on January 4th)
View all (14 topics)
Add a new topic <--- remove this link?
  • If no discussions exist for an addon, don't show "See all discussions (0)". Just make it a single link (ala my previous reviews comment)
  • When viewing discussions, there should be a note that you need to log in to add a new comment/topic.
  • Add a pony.
  • When viewing a specific addon, the breadcrumb should include the addon type... "Home > Addons > EXTENSIONS > IceWidget". Ideally the breadcrumb would show the trail you followed to get there (ie, the category), but that's probably a Harder Problem.
  • Nice effect with the animation to show a review's content, but that makes it inconsistent with clicking on a discussion topic (which doesn't animate to show the topic's body, but takes you to a new page). The review text should just be shown by default (subject not linkified for animation), probably trimmed (with an appended "more" link that animates to show the rest?) so that long reviews don't take up more than a few lines by default.

Hmm, I guess that's enough comments for now! :-)

Pawell's l10n comments

  • Links to MDC should point to corresponding localization (see Pascal's comment)
  • The 'Home' link should point to {locale}.www.mozilla.com/{locale}/
  • The construction of 'Browse all {addon-type}' can't be properly translated in languages with different genders and pronoun inflection
Example:
Browse all Extensions -> Procházet všechna rozšíření
Browse all Themes -> Procházet všechny motivy vzhledu

Moreover, we need to use the lowercase for the {addon-type} string in the middle of the sentence.

  • The same holds for 'Popular {addon-type}'
Popular Extension -> Oblíbená rozšíření
Popular Themes -> Oblíbené motivy vzhledu
Thanks for your comments, Pawell.  These are very relevant, and unfortunately, the tools
we're using don't provide a way to handle declinations programmatically.  For
translating the examples you've provided, we're going to have to rely on 
localizers interpreting the context, and if necessary, leaving out the pronouns.
For example, instead of "Browse all Extensions" it would be translated as
"Browse Extensions".  We could add comments in the .po file to help recognize
the areas where this could come up.  Any thoughts on this? --clouserw
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