Add-On Site Suggestions

Anything to do with the Pale Moon add-ons website. (addons.palemoon.org)
Not for questions about add-ons themselves!
Forum rules
Important: This board is for specifics regarding the add-ons website (addons.palemoon.org) and not to report extension compatibility issues or discuss different extensions.
Please only post here when your topic is directly related to the add-ons website service so our moderators don't have to move your posts all the time...
CharmCityCrab

Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by CharmCityCrab » 2016-12-12, 01:59

The spirit of this post is not to criticize what was or is, but just to offer some thoughts on what can be done going forward to make an already good system better when it comes to Pale Moon specific add-ons and the Pale Moon add-on site.

With Pale Moon and Firefox drifting further apart, there is going to be more user demand for Pale Moon specific add-ons and perhaps even more developers interested in developing Pale Moon specific add-ons, as there should be! Pale Moon is not Firefox, and there should be more add-ons that are specific to Pale Moon.

Matt A. Tobin has done a ton of great work for this project and I appreciate the fruits of his work and his vision, but based on one of MoonChild's posts, it looks like he's stepping back from things. Since MoonChild has already reverted a key decision Tobin made about Ad-Block Latitude, I thought that maybe MoonChild and others might be interested in reevaluating the approach to the add-on site going forward. It's in no way a knock on Tobin, I just sense that maybe now we are at a point where his specific vision is not etched in stone and maybe a different approach might be taken, and want to throw out a few ideas that could be used, not used, or used in some sort of modified format.

Okay, so, here they are:

- I really strongly think there should be a link on the add-on site for developers to click on to tell them how to develop their add-on for Pale Moon and how to submit it- and that the submission process should be as simple as possible (i.e. "Send it to the following email address as an attachment"). I get the feeling some developers are told they should develop a Pale Moon version by users, go to the Pale Moon add-on site to check it out, and then are left scratching their head on both how to develop for Pale Moon and how to submit to the add-on site. This could be changed. We all know that the more friction there is between thinking about doing something and getting it done, the more likely people are to give up.

- In general, I think there should be a stronger push for people who develop extensions for Pale Moon to get their extensions listed by, hosted by, and to send their updates through the Pale Moon Add-Ons site. Obviously, Pale Moon is going to remain open to extensions that are just downloaded from the web, I get that that is something that the devs want there in terms of customizability and to prevent Pale Moon from becoming a walled garden, which is is good, *but* the bulk of users are going to go to the official add-on site, and I can say that I as an individual user feel more comfortable downloading from an add-on site where code is reviewed by the makers of the browser I am already trusting, than some random third-party site an individual user puts something on and links to from the forum (Of course, this may be because he or she isn't clear on how to *be* officially listed, which gets back to the first idea). People who don't read the forums don't even know these things exist, and forum users don't know what to trust.

- Restore search ability to add-on site

- How about about some featured add-ons and colors and such on the add-on site main page? I feel like there should be some stuff for the casual user to just grab off the first page, or to click on off the first page to take them to an extension's individual page, and then download. I don't feel the main add-on page as it stands is inviting to casual users. Now, there are plenty of ways to decide what's featured- it could be most downloaded, "editors" (ie dev's) choice, things that correspond to what most people request on most browsers (i.e. an add-blocker, etc.), spotlight on new or "just added" extensions, extensions that are most frequently updated (or updated in the last 6 months or whatever), etc.. Anything along those lines would be fine. I just feel like having the logos (There's the color!) and names for some extensions on the first page would increase extension use among casual users, which in turn would increase developer interest knowing they have a big userbase for the platform, and so on....


Anyway, just some ideas. As I said or implied, I love Pale Moon as is, and this isn't meant to be critical. Also, I fully realize by ideas may be impractical, bad, or just not something that fits with where the developers want to go- and all that is fine. I'm just tossing ideas out there. If people reject them, that's totally fine. Just trying to help.

JustOff

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by JustOff » 2016-12-12, 13:05

I'm deeply convinced that any Mozilla-based browser, including Pale Moon, primarily is about addons and freedom of customization.

I'm totally agree with the most of ideas that stated above, but the problem is that besides the suggestions we need someone who can and want to make it.
Off-topic:
Sometimes I think that even simple wiki-style directory of extensions would be better than current APMO, but unfortunately I have no time to contribute for its development.

GreenGeek

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by GreenGeek » 2016-12-12, 15:13

The last suggestion should be the most important. Make it look nice and people will want to use it and add more to it. Definitely need screen shots for most extensions (the theme page is acceptable as is). User reviews and ratings would help too; it gives people more confidence. Despite hating a lot of what Mozilla has done, I have to admit I like most of what their addon site has. It's definitely more appropriate than either Google, Microsoft, or Opera "stores" (please don't call the addon site a store!).

Developers can do without pretty pages but making the process simple is definitely a help. It would be best if it didn't depend on a response by a specific person (anyone on the team could approve a submission). [Have not tested the dev side of current APO, so cant make specific comments on it.]

I always thought a pre-built, off-the-shelf, php-based CMS, of which there are many, would suffice and could be up and running in a matter of hours/days. Actually even old-fashioned static HTML pages would do.

Andrew Gilbertson

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by Andrew Gilbertson » 2016-12-12, 22:08

GreenGeek wrote:I always thought a pre-built, off-the-shelf, php-based CMS, of which there are many, would suffice
One of the reasons that Matt A. Tobin went the way he did with the "Phoebus" rewrite of the add-ons site was because the existing site consisted of a "smattering of scripts + mangled CMS" that he wasn't happy with. He didn't go into details on what he meant by "mangled CMS" so I'm not sure exactly what the issues were.

Having an actual CMS would definitely be useful, but an off-the-shelf CMS definitely would not suffice; lots of customization would have to be done. How do we handle multiple versions of an add-on, especially where the add-on had to be updated to deal with changes in the browser core? You can't just give each version it's own page, the site would be a mess. How do you handle search across the different types of add-on? Do we implement search per type of add-on, sitewide, give people checkboxes to say what type of add-ons they'd like to search? Do we link all the add-ons by the same author together? If so, how do we handle collaborative efforts? And in the end, we may just be re-discovering the problems that Matt A. Tobin found.

kizo07

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by kizo07 » 2016-12-13, 00:10

Add-ons, add-ons, add-ons ... I am quite agree with what all off you say and can understand people's need for add-ons ... but feeling that many (ordinary) users need so many add- ons as possible ... without thinking much about 'consequences' ... 'Oh, this add-on is nice to have ... oh, THIS is nice, oh, perhaps I need that later'... And they fast have several tens of add-ons installed in browser ... 'I feel so good in my supersonic cockpit or 'I feel so safe in my fort' :)
I think that it should be added some kind of 'education,friendly usage', 'how to use', 'be careful' or similar on the first page when man open add-ons page ... thus, possible minor problems for users and crew/developers self.

KNTRO

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by KNTRO » 2016-12-16, 05:26

Hi all!
CharmCityCrab wrote:- Restore search ability to add-on site
Matt A Tobin wrote: two points have changed from the perspective of the end user browsing the site:
1) There will no longer be an "All Extensions" page.
2) There is no search functionality. Yet. This will require more creative thinking on how to handle that. I have some ideas but they will be implemented in a later version.
Source

:cry:

wost_

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by wost_ » 2016-12-16, 12:55

Moving extensions' metadata from files into a relational database would possibly solve issues with searching (at least partially) and listing extensions from all categories. But this needs some solid redesign and big changes in APMO's infrastructure, so it's a long term task.

CharmCityCrab

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by CharmCityCrab » 2016-12-19, 04:24

wost_ wrote:Moving extensions' metadata from files into a relational database would possibly solve issues with searching (at least partially) and listing extensions from all categories. But this needs some solid redesign and big changes in APMO's infrastructure, so it's a long term task.
Is the Firefox code for their add-on site open-source? If so, just fork it, or fork an earlier version that was closer to compatibility with Pale Moon, and then make the necessary changes to have it work with modern Pale Moon extensions and have Pale Moon branding instead of Firefox branding, etc..

I am not sure I've really heard that many complaints about the Firefox add-on site itself here. I see complaints that it's extensions are not usually full compatible with Pale Moon and that Pale Moon should develop it's own add-on site as the place to for Pale Moon extensions. But the actual format and backend server and HTML code for the Firefox add-on site? Seems like that could work as a starting point to come up with a new Pale Moon add-on site and then go from there developing it forward the way the Pale Moon developers and users want to in the same way that the Pale Moon web browser continues to develop and evolve.

I appreciate all Tobin's work in developing the Pale Moon add-on site, but with him seemingly gone from the project for mysterious reasons, there would seem to be less friction to just starting over from a fork of the Mozilla site if that is what MoonChild wants to do.

Of course, I'm assuming the Mozilla stuff is open-source, and it may not be.

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Moonchild
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Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by Moonchild » 2016-12-19, 05:01

CharmCityCrab wrote:Is the Firefox code for their add-on site open-source?
It is, but it is also another Python-based disaster. And of course there's no documentation how to actually get to a working setup there.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

IByte

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by IByte » 2016-12-19, 14:08

Moonchild wrote:
CharmCityCrab wrote:Is the Firefox code for their add-on site open-source?
It is, but it is also another Python-based disaster. And of course there's no documentation how to actually get to a working setup there.
I wondered this myself for a moment (yes, it is), but realistically, I think that it would indeed be a lot of work to adapt AMO, perhaps more so than adapting some well-known and documented CMS.

Falna
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Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by Falna » 2016-12-19, 15:17

I see that The Document Foundation have just launched a new Plone-driven website for LibreOffice extensions & templates: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2016/12/14/libreoffice-has-a-new-extensions-templates-website/

Seems to be available on Gitub: https://github.com/tdf

Forked extensions :
● Add-ons Inspector ● Auto Text Link ● Copy As Plain Text ● Copy Hyperlink Text ● FireFTP button replacement ● gSearch Bar ● Navigation Bar Enhancer ● New Tab Links ● Number Tabs ● Print Preview Button and Keyboard Shortcut 2 ● Scrollbar Search Marker ● Simple Marker ● Tabs To Portfolio ● Update Alert ● Web Developer's Toolbox ● Zap Anything

Hint: If you expect a reply to your PM, allow replies...

kizo07

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by kizo07 » 2017-01-21, 19:09

I have some suggestions...since my English is on 'handicap 9' level, I decided to 'quote/fork' others thoughts and ideas from post 'A solution for SDK extensions'... viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14157

This is what I found so far 'interesting':

'I have carefully studied the full history of'
'Creating something from scratch is never easy and and creating superior solutions is even harder'
'everything I gotta say is pure from the heart and what I observed'
'I can say with full responsibility that my proposal is safe and requires minimal changes'
'In view of the above, I would propose'

'It's going to be even more important to have a good addons site'
'Appearance and Ease of Use - not very appealing'
'those pages have no screenshots, no user reviews, and not much useful description in a lot of cases'
'An addons site doesn't really need to be different than software downloads'
'No known way to upload, or register as a developer'
'developers will be able to smoothly adapt their add-ons to Pale Moon and new users will be able to find their usual extensions more easily'
'People like to participate, not ask for permission. Letting developers upload, with a period for review and approval by the Addons Team, would make them more interested in PM extension development. Also, users should have some way to participate also, by reviewing, rating, and contacting developers'
'If the person in charge were friendly it might make a difference'
'Also, we shouldn't drive away the big extension developer gurus who do occasionally visit the forum (gorhill is still here but Chuck B. left AFAIK, so did others I think); instead we need more of them to come. Pale Moon should offer them whatever they need'
'One does not take into account of security factors with user submitted material going into a database nor the actual design of said database and schema but these are just as important if not absolutely critical aspects of good and sustainable software design'
'possible issues, possible overlapping/interference, how they can affect browser'
'Thanks for the testing'
'I'm going to write the guide that will explain these differences and how to properly adjust extensions'
'be ready to propose truly reliable solution and prove it'
'But once again I want to warn all that such info should not be considered as a guide, but only as a study report and as a starting point for further investigations'

'And.. how is that different from not trying to begin with?'
'I am not important here'
'don't want to sound overly opinionated'
'I'm against any political decisions'
'let's reach the final extinction of this technology in an evolutionary way'
'Everyone has flaws and I am not blind to my own and I do appreciate your post'

Also, from same post, a bit of topic' but falling into my taste off nice, successful and constructive conversation:
'I'll be very grateful if someone will suggest how to'
'it's quite possible that it's not a feasible way forward, but if nobody tries, then it'll never happen'
'I am willing to help'
'I'm glad to see more creative innovation'
'I need help understanding'
'Ok thank you... I'm waiting for it'
'I could give many more examples and arguments, but I don't want to take your time'
'If this is not answering the question please tell me and I will try and rephrase'
'While I totally disagree with your position, I must to say that I highly appreciate your honest professional answer on topic'

'Please keep this thread on-topic!'

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Al6bus
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Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by Al6bus » 2017-01-21, 19:25

kizo07 wrote:
I have some suggestions...since my English is on 'handicap 9' level, I decided to 'quote/fork' others thoughts and ideas from post 'A solution for SDK extensions'... viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14157

This is what I found so far 'interesting':

'I have carefully studied the full history of'
'Creating something from scratch is never easy and and creating superior solutions is even harder'
'everything I gotta say is pure from the heart and what I observed'
'I can say with full responsibility that my proposal is safe and requires minimal changes'
'In view of the above, I would propose'

'It's going to be even more important to have a good addons site'
'Appearance and Ease of Use - not very appealing'
'those pages have no screenshots, no user reviews, and not much useful description in a lot of cases'
'An addons site doesn't really need to be different than software downloads'
'No known way to upload, or register as a developer'
'developers will be able to smoothly adapt their add-ons to Pale Moon and new users will be able to find their usual extensions more easily'
'People like to participate, not ask for permission. Letting developers upload, with a period for review and approval by the Addons Team, would make them more interested in PM extension development. Also, users should have some way to participate also, by reviewing, rating, and contacting developers'
'If the person in charge were friendly it might make a difference'
'Also, we shouldn't drive away the big extension developer gurus who do occasionally visit the forum (gorhill is still here but Chuck B. left AFAIK, so did others I think); instead we need more of them to come. Pale Moon should offer them whatever they need'
'One does not take into account of security factors with user submitted material going into a database nor the actual design of said database and schema but these are just as important if not absolutely critical aspects of good and sustainable software design'
'possible issues, possible overlapping/interference, how they can affect browser'
'Thanks for the testing'
'I'm going to write the guide that will explain these differences and how to properly adjust extensions'
'be ready to propose truly reliable solution and prove it'
'But once again I want to warn all that such info should not be considered as a guide, but only as a study report and as a starting point for further investigations'

'And.. how is that different from not trying to begin with?'
'I am not important here'
'don't want to sound overly opinionated'
'I'm against any political decisions'
'let's reach the final extinction of this technology in an evolutionary way'
'Everyone has flaws and I am not blind to my own and I do appreciate your post'

Also, from same post, a bit of topic' but falling into my taste off nice, successful and constructive conversation:
'I'll be very grateful if someone will suggest how to'
'it's quite possible that it's not a feasible way forward, but if nobody tries, then it'll never happen'
'I am willing to help'
'I'm glad to see more creative innovation'
'I need help understanding'
'Ok thank you... I'm waiting for it'
'I could give many more examples and arguments, but I don't want to take your time'
'If this is not answering the question please tell me and I will try and rephrase'
'While I totally disagree with your position, I must to say that I highly appreciate your honest professional answer on topic'

'Please keep this thread on-topic!'
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GreenGeek

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by GreenGeek » 2017-01-21, 20:01

kizo07, were you trying to say you were reposting suggestions or comments you agree with? If so, try again because you did a really poor job of getting your message across. It's bad form to quote other people's posts out of context and without citing who said what. All those quotes should be removed - by a mod if necessary.

kizo07

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by kizo07 » 2017-01-21, 20:49

Yes, I agree with those 'citations'! Hence, I posted them here into suggestions.
To get more readable and to get to point, I haven't write peoples name.

If somebody think I violated "fair use", standard copyright and similar author's rights or it is plagiarism, please let me know.
:)

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Lootyhoof
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Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by Lootyhoof » 2017-03-04, 18:55

Bumping this topic as I feel this subject needs a bit of closure.
I really strongly think there should be a link on the add-on site for developers to click on to tell them how to develop their add-on for Pale Moon and how to submit it- and that the submission process should be as simple as possible (i.e. "Send it to the following email address as an attachment").
This is now the case - see: https://addons.palemoon.org/
In general, I think there should be a stronger push for people who develop extensions for Pale Moon to get their extensions listed by, hosted by, and to send their updates through the Pale Moon Add-Ons site.
Lately I've been approaching a few developers on this subject (who already support Pale Moon) and generally they've been quite responsive. If you check out the all extensions page it should look a bit more filled out than it did not that long ago. ;)

I do agree with this statement though, mainly due to the fact that AMO is becoming less and less reliable for us, especially when it comes to PMkit add-ons. Due to the fact that AMO only sees us as Firefox 27.9 (which is a fair assumption, mind), anything that targets a minimum Firefox version higher than that, even if they support Pale Moon fully, will show as "not compatible" for Pale Moon users on the add-on listing (but will install perfectly). This in turn means that these add-ons will never update for Pale Moon users unless they manually visit the add-on's listing on AMO and reinstall the new version. Of course, this is also true of non-PMkit add-ons that target a larger minimum Firefox version than we report as: a notable example is Tab Mix Plus, which we have since been able to list on the add-ons site with the author's permission and now uses our update infrastructure for Pale Moon users.
Restore search ability to add-on site
See issue #19.
How about about some featured add-ons and colors and such on the add-on site main page?
This is being considered.
Make it look nice and people will want to use it and add more to it.
Work is going into improving the look and feel of the site.

Hope this clears up some things. :)

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2017-03-04, 19:28

You all can track the progress of the Add-ons Site in development at both the test domain http://dev.addons.palemoon.org/ (may be broken at any time :P) and by watching activity at the github repository https://github.com/Pale-Moon-Addons-Team/phoebus.

JustOff

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by JustOff » 2017-03-05, 10:56

I found that for some reason you have changed the URL routing, so all extensions and themes are now located under /addon/ path. It looks a little strange, but I hope that at least you are going to provide backward compatibility with existing links.

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2017-03-05, 11:01

Of course I will.. I did before.. Dunno why u'd doubt it.

I changed it so that things could be handled in a more standardized way between proper xpi add-ons and reduce more complex and redundent nearly identical code for extensions and themes to one unified code path.

EDIT: Now that I am on my computer not my phone...

The change was made as I said to reduce complexity and nearly identical and redundant code. Before extensions and themes were handled almost identically but not quite since the differences are so minor they needed to be aligned better. There is no reason the non-display code needs to treat them differently. Also, having slugs along side categories created too much redundancy and conditional depth..

Compare:
https://github.com/Pale-Moon-Addons-Team/phoebus/blob/RELEASE/phoebus/base/website.php#L93
plus
https://github.com/Pale-Moon-Addons-Team/phoebus/blob/RELEASE/phoebus/base/addons.php#L175

-WITH-

https://github.com/Pale-Moon-Addons-Team/phoebus/blob/TRUNK/phoebus/components/site/site.php#L219

In fact compare the whole files from RELEASE and TRUNK.. The merged and partly rewritten code is simpler, less conditionally complex, and does a better job with more standardization of how things are treated. Which means less error prone and consistent. It does the same job but in a much better way.
Last edited by New Tobin Paradigm on 2017-03-05, 11:20, edited 1 time in total.

JustOff

Re: Add-On Site Suggestions

Unread post by JustOff » 2017-03-05, 11:19

I do not doubt you, I just pointed out that bothers me. Thanks for clarifying.

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