User talk:Topa
My Firefox 3 Wishlist
Import/Export of Addons Information
The Problem : The amount of addons which are currently installed on Firefox is huge. Also there is no easy way to export the addons-information either to a local file or a central server(like AMO). This results in information loss when a profile get's corrupted or a new profile is created. People currently have to go around hunting for their favorite extensions/themes/search-engines and re-install them to the new profile.
Possible Solution : Allow the user to export their addon information to a RDF file which carries the following information:
- Addon Name
- Addon Type
- Addon Homepage
- Addon GUID(if one exists)
- Addon UpdateURL(if non-AMO extension)
This will enable user's to save their addon-information to a local file. On the import of this file, user's will be able to re-install all their favorite addons painlessly.
Other thoughts :Instead of saving the file locally, the file can be saved on AMO so that people who use multiple Firefox installation will be able to have a single addons-profile which gets synced with AMO when addons are removed/added. People can also choose to expose their addon-information to other's (something like del.icio.us). If someone is interested in using another person's addons-profile, they just have to download the corresponding RDF file and import it into their Firefox installation using the 'Import' functionality.
Mockup : I have a in-developoment firefox extension which already export/imports extension-information to and from an RDF file. If anyone is interested in furthering the idea, please mail me: toufeeqh at gmail dot com. This extension will appear on AMO shortly after I'm done testing with it.
Direct Download Button
Problem :This need arises when a URL for a file (mp3/video) is found in a .txt file when a text file is loaded in Firefox or when such a URL is encountered in a Text Editor. If the users wants to download the file, he has to open a new tab in the browser, and paste the URL in the address bar at which point it get's added to the download-queue.
Possible Solution : Two possible alternates :
- Allow user's to drag-drop links to the Download Manager Window which adds the URL to the download queue.
- Have a button called 'Download Link' which open-up a text-entry window wherein people can paste the link and it gets added to the Download Manager Window.
In-Page Bookmarking
In-Page bookmarking focuses on preserving the state of a page(position) when it is bookmarked. The other idea of in-page bookmarking is for people to bookmark specific content of a page. People can highlight a particular portion of a page (maybe multiple portions) and then choose to bookmark it.
A POC for this is available in the WebMarker extension.