Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
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Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
Some of us, if we were drivers, would need a friend or professional to do such things.moonbat wrote: ↑2021-12-31, 00:18No there isn't any need to 'study' any more than you need to get a degree in automotive engineering before you can learn how to change your car tyre or install a roof rack.…But you need to give enough of a [expletive removed] to ask what resources are available to learn in order to know that.
They might not have been, but the survey has shown that many (even most) Pale Moon users belong to this category. Why are we here? I can state some of my own reasons:These people are not Pale Moon's target audience. 15 years ago, they would've been using Internet Explorer.…Firefox started to slide the day they decided to focus on 'simplicity' for the majority in a bid to imitate Chrome, so now Pale Moon is the only browser left for people willing to control their own browsing experience instead of having a brainfart when an icon is moved out of place.
- Privacy and other philosophical principles. We all know that Google and its kin are evil. I believe that privacy is a human right, not a treat only for a learnt élite. (That ‘anyone can learn’ does not make it any less an élite; the civil service examinations in imperial China were just as open for ‘anybody willing to learn’.) Marginal browsers are all that remain for us. Among these, Tor and LibreWolf have their own problems; their hostility against localisation is the first that comes to mind. Epiphany, Ungoogled Chromium and Otter might serve others (if not myself, for reasons below) well enough if not for that they are readily available either for Linux, which they do not use, or only as source code. This leaves, ignoring for obvious reasons obscure, feature-incomplete browsers like NetSurf or Lynx, traditional Firefox forks.
- User interface and other cosmetic reasons. I think flat design is ugly, but no Quantum- or Chromium-based browser would let me replace hamburger menus and other monochromatic glyphs with actual icons. With Waterfox Classic’s late end of life, Pale Moon and SeaMonkey are, as far as I know, the most familiar browsers with traditional interfaces still in support. We like XUL over WebExtensions not for any technical reasons, but because the menus are much prettier here. We stay because of the promise that we can keep this pretty face.
- Preservation. I am a hobby archivist myself. I like strolling through the Internet Archive or some corners of the Japanese internet and chancing on Flash files ‘in the wild’ that are neither in nor would be at home in Flashpoint or any of the other modern emulators. NPAPI support is, with SeaMonkey’s late changes, now unique to Pale Moon. Many others have XUL-based extensions that simply have no WebExtensions equivalent, even if they are indifferent to UI differences, and stay here to preserve them.
Browser: Pale Moon (Pusser’s repository for Debian)
Operating System: Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 (amd64)
※Receiving Debian 10 LTS security upgrades
Hardware: HP Pavilion DV6-7010 (1400 MHz, 6 GB)
Formerly user TheRealMaestro: æsc is the best letter.
Operating System: Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 (amd64)
※Receiving Debian 10 LTS security upgrades
Hardware: HP Pavilion DV6-7010 (1400 MHz, 6 GB)
Formerly user TheRealMaestro: æsc is the best letter.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
All very noble, but what you're saying boils down to 'I want to have my browser on cruise control just the way it used to be with Firefox before they went nuts,and let other people deal with the headache of making that happen for me because I can't give a <intercourse your prissy, puritanical expletive removal even when they're not directed at you. Unclench and relax.> to learn myself even when there's documentation and experienced people right here to guide me'.
Unfortunately in terms of technical community size, this browser is smaller than Firefox was when it was little more than an idea at Mozilla 20 years ago, so there isn't the luxury of sitting back and letting others do the heavy lifting for fixing some special extension that is applicable to oneself alone. There's a small handful of developers who are occupied with working on the browser itself, and a few others here on the forum who have ported or authored extensions, and none of us are getting paid to do this full time. As you or someone else stated as an excuse, we also have jobs and life priorities to deal with.
And this is when nobody is expected to code an extension from scratch, a few of the thousands of existing ones need to be slightly tweaked to continue working; for which there's clear instructions provided by several people, but oh no, we won't even attempt that barest minimum effort it takes our brain cells.
I'm not happy with MC's decision to cave in to the entitled horde but whatever. All this does is allow installing Firefox extensions without modification as they used to - there is no guarantee they will continue working in future as Pale Moon has to adapt to web and Javascript 'standards' that keep mutating every fortnight at a demented pace set by Google. At which point of course, all these people who are essentially parasites, living off the browser but making up myriad excuses to avoid lifting a finger to contribute (which is actually to benefit themselves the most) - will shrug and move off to one of the ChromeZilla browsers after whining that it is Pale Moon's fault and that browser devs ought to fix these extensions.
Firefox used to be a browser for regular and power users alike, and it eventually had enough of the former to evangelize it over IE and author the over 20,000 extensions over 15 years that are now on CAA. Pale Moon's attempt to grow a similar community has been successfully strangled in the crib.
"One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them and in the darkness BIND them."
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Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
Pieces of mind soaked in grappa. Or you can say my mind is in pieces - whatever.
Q: What are the computer user categories?
A: Dumb users, regular users (normal is an uncertain word nowadays), tinkerers, power users, experts (including programmers).
Q: Who should be the target audience for our software from the above?
A: All of them - with best possible defaults, clever ergonomics, helpful documentation and community.
Q: Who created the extensions (since that's the current topic title)?
A: Definitely neither first nor second category.
Q: Who should take care of current and future extensions so that core developers could focus as much as possible on the, well, core?
A: Whoever is capable, willing and can afford the time. Usually third category and up, as above. Leave core devs alone.
Q: Are we gonna get anything constructive from all this talk or just waste time and cyberspace?
A: ... [your turn now y'all, it's past 4AM here so I'll hit the sack]
Q: What are the computer user categories?
A: Dumb users, regular users (normal is an uncertain word nowadays), tinkerers, power users, experts (including programmers).
Q: Who should be the target audience for our software from the above?
A: All of them - with best possible defaults, clever ergonomics, helpful documentation and community.
Q: Who created the extensions (since that's the current topic title)?
A: Definitely neither first nor second category.
Q: Who should take care of current and future extensions so that core developers could focus as much as possible on the, well, core?
A: Whoever is capable, willing and can afford the time. Usually third category and up, as above. Leave core devs alone.
Q: Are we gonna get anything constructive from all this talk or just waste time and cyberspace?
A: ... [your turn now y'all, it's past 4AM here so I'll hit the sack]
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
I agree wholeheartedly. Your concision amazes me.Drugwash wrote: ↑2021-12-31, 02:23Pieces of mind soaked in grappa. Or you can say my mind is in pieces - whatever.
Q: What are the computer user categories?
A: Dumb users, regular users (normal is an uncertain word nowadays), tinkerers, power users, experts (including programmers).
Q: Who should be the target audience for our software from the above?
A: All of them - with best possible defaults, clever ergonomics, helpful documentation and community.
Q: Who created the extensions (since that's the current topic title)?
A: Definitely neither first nor second category.
Q: Who should take care of current and future extensions so that core developers could focus as much as possible on the, well, core?
A: Whoever is capable, willing and can afford the time. Usually third category and up, as above. Leave core devs alone.
Unless there is something we have missed, I think we have all made our points and given each other food for thought.Q: Are we gonna get anything constructive from all this talk or just waste time and cyberspace?
A: ... [your turn now y'all, it's past 4AM here so I'll hit the sack]
Browser: Pale Moon (Pusser’s repository for Debian)
Operating System: Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 (amd64)
※Receiving Debian 10 LTS security upgrades
Hardware: HP Pavilion DV6-7010 (1400 MHz, 6 GB)
Formerly user TheRealMaestro: æsc is the best letter.
Operating System: Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 (amd64)
※Receiving Debian 10 LTS security upgrades
Hardware: HP Pavilion DV6-7010 (1400 MHz, 6 GB)
Formerly user TheRealMaestro: æsc is the best letter.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
This guide is intended for programmers.moonbat wrote: ↑2021-12-31, 00:18No there isn't any need to 'study' any more than you need to get a degree in automotive engineering before you can learn how to change your car tyre or install a roof rack. There is the XUL school tutorial for starters, it takes one step by step through the process of making a simple extension.
It is really helpful to get some initial insight and feel that the environment is subservient to you. But to find out the possibilities, and to create something serious, you still have to study deeply, right down to parts of the browser source code.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
How, when they jump into every topic, like personal browser customization and even extensions which are supposed to be left to us to make work? Somebody want to set us up our own forum? And I miss old AMO where we could review and rate extensions in relative peace.
Win10home(1709), PM33.0.0-portable as of Feb 1, '24
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
Did that example one years ago. Would have been better if they had a way to add useful code. It was like a programming book that stopped with the Hello World program.
Actually better IMO to use the code in the real extensions. Except, actual forking as a start gets you bogged down with making new icons and tedious editing to replace a name, chores that take the fun out of it. And then if you do get it done, there's no friendly place to upload it.to create something serious
Win10home(1709), PM33.0.0-portable as of Feb 1, '24
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
You can't sprint before you learn to walk, so start with simple extensions. I have 5 original extensions, of which only 2 were deeply enough integrated into the browser that they required looking at its source. A regular extension with a toolbar button or a dialog, or one that interacts with a page doesn't need you to do that. You're better off 'studying' the code of an extension rather than the browser, especially if it's one that you use regularly and are already thus both familiar with and have a motivation to keep it ticking.
And a non programmer doesn't even have to go this far if all they're interested in is using old FF extensions. Changing the application ID to match Pale Moon's (which won't be needed after the next release, given Moonchild's announcement) was well explained by different people on the forum, who are again not all developers.
Feel free to join the Reddit sub which contra the name, is not an official channel and has actually booted the original devs so that they can bitch about how 'toxic' this place is in peace.
Then I suggest you look at the link again, because it very clearly explains how to add different UI elements, how to handle button and mouse events and the lot. You just need to decide how the user should interact with your extension(Toolbar button? Tools menu option? Both? Rightclick context menu? and others) and then look at the relevant section on how to do it.
You can keep it for personal use, distributing it is dependent on the license it's offered under and the license doesn't usually cover the artwork and name. I've forked the popular DownThemAll here as GetEmAll - and for that I had to replace each and every instance of the icon, the arrows image on the window header and all links to the original to avoid copyright violation. If you take the trouble of doing all this and submitting it for hosting on the PM addons site, you'll be contributing back to the community. That's how Firefox originally grew. Or if you can contact the original developer and convince them to support Pale Moon, even better. That's also been done a few times.
If your comment was over the strict requirements for inclusions on the Pale Moon addons site or directly attaching them to forum posts, it is because Moonchild will be legally liable for extensions that violate the original author's license if they were not originally open source.
"One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them and in the darkness BIND them."
Linux Mint 21 Xfce x64 on HP i5-5200 laptop, 12 GB RAM.
AutoPageColor|PermissionsPlus|PMPlayer|Pure URL|RecordRewind|TextFX
Linux Mint 21 Xfce x64 on HP i5-5200 laptop, 12 GB RAM.
AutoPageColor|PermissionsPlus|PMPlayer|Pure URL|RecordRewind|TextFX
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
Arigatou. Couldn't do that if I was sobre.
Some minds may be slow eaters. And there probably still are things to set up for the future.TheRealMaestro wrote: ↑2021-12-31, 03:25Unless there is something we have missed, I think we have all made our points and given each other food for thought.
What I meant was for us users to stop whining and begging and blaming the core devs every time an extension doesn't work - correctly or at all. We've been given (back) the freedom to play with all possible extensions, now it's on us and only us to fix what's broken.Michaell wrote: ↑2021-12-31, 04:24How, when they jump into every topic, like personal browser customization and even extensions which are supposed to be left to us to make work? Somebody want to set us up our own forum? And I miss old AMO where we could review and rate extensions in relative peace.
Of course, devs are always allowed to chime in or step in when necessary, and we may also need their help at times, but not as little children always asking "gimme, gimme!" as before. This board is alright in my opinion, no need for yet another place to scatter information to.
The rate and review system may be difficult to implement and maintain, at least currently. Maybe the board could hold something similar ad-hoc for a while until PM's add-on site would get fit for that, if ever. I'm afraid though that it may put too much additional burden on moderators' shoulders if reviews and comments become erratic and degenerate into something else. We need maturity and that's not always easy to achieve. But please let's all strive to.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
Something like the Visual Novel Database or a Fandom wiki, if nobody can host his own site, could work. Extensions designed for Pale Moon are scattered between several sites beside the official extensions page (SeaMonkey’s page, JustOff’s Github, the NoScript site…), to say nothing of the Classic Add-ons Archive soon becoming available again. Small as it is, Pale Moon is large enough to have lots of autonomous work surrounding it even against the developers’ wishes. Having one place somewhere to document all (official and other) work with XUL browsing seems wise.Drugwash wrote: ↑2021-12-31, 16:15The rate and review system may be difficult to implement and maintain, at least currently. Maybe the board could hold something similar ad-hoc for a while until PM's add-on site would get fit for that, if ever. I'm afraid though that it may put too much additional burden on moderators' shoulders if reviews and comments become erratic and degenerate into something else. We need maturity and that's not always easy to achieve. But please let's all strive to.
Last edited by Mæstro on 2021-12-31, 21:43, edited 1 time in total.
Browser: Pale Moon (Pusser’s repository for Debian)
Operating System: Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 (amd64)
※Receiving Debian 10 LTS security upgrades
Hardware: HP Pavilion DV6-7010 (1400 MHz, 6 GB)
Formerly user TheRealMaestro: æsc is the best letter.
Operating System: Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 (amd64)
※Receiving Debian 10 LTS security upgrades
Hardware: HP Pavilion DV6-7010 (1400 MHz, 6 GB)
Formerly user TheRealMaestro: æsc is the best letter.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
Users post here about problems because there's nowhere else. They may be hoping to get help from other users, not "begging and blaming the core devs".Drugwash wrote: ↑2021-12-31, 16:15What I meant was for us users to stop whining and begging and blaming the core devs every time an extension doesn't work - correctly or at all. We've been given (back) the freedom to play with all possible extensions, now it's on us and only us to fix what's broken.
No, they opposed the concept, especially the guy that insisted on writing his own code. The site ended up being very dull with no user interaction. So, we have to come here which opens it up to attack by people who aren't even interested in the extension.The rate and review system ...
Win10home(1709), PM33.0.0-portable as of Feb 1, '24
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
I haven't looked at those yet, but I don't think I'd participate in a Wiki. I was a member of a wiki site I put a lot of effort into backed up by serious research. And any idiot who just copied false information off the web could come along and add to or replace my text.TheRealMaestro wrote: ↑2021-12-31, 16:36Something like the Visual Novel Database or a Fandom wiki, if nobody can host his own site, could work.
Yep, the only way XUL could ever expand outside the PM devs own efforts was for it to be hosted somewhere independently. You didn't mention Reality Ripple. He already has comments on his own extensions. I don't know if he would be interested in hosting something more. We shouldn't rely on Github though because "normal users" are less likely to signup there. (And it's become more annoying to login so I rarely do anymore.)Extensions designed for Pale Moon are scattered between several sites ... Having one place somewhere to document all (official and other) work with XUL browsing seems wise.
Win10home(1709), PM33.0.0-portable as of Feb 1, '24
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
You are right that we should avoid Github for the reasons you say; this is why I had chosen sample sites for anime, a non-technical field. I think that we can avoid the problems that make wikis worthless for real reference if our scope is narrow enough: cataloguing XUL applications and extensions and letting users rate and discuss them.Michaell wrote: ↑2021-12-31, 17:00Yep, the only way XUL could ever expand outside the PM devs own efforts was for it to be hosted somewhere independently. You didn't mention Reality Ripple. He already has comments on his own extensions. I don't know if he would be interested in hosting something more. We shouldn't rely on Github though because "normal users" are less likely to signup there. (And it's become more annoying to login so I rarely do anymore.)
Last edited by Mæstro on 2021-12-31, 17:16, edited 1 time in total.
Browser: Pale Moon (Pusser’s repository for Debian)
Operating System: Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 (amd64)
※Receiving Debian 10 LTS security upgrades
Hardware: HP Pavilion DV6-7010 (1400 MHz, 6 GB)
Formerly user TheRealMaestro: æsc is the best letter.
Operating System: Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 (amd64)
※Receiving Debian 10 LTS security upgrades
Hardware: HP Pavilion DV6-7010 (1400 MHz, 6 GB)
Formerly user TheRealMaestro: æsc is the best letter.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
Ideas, that's good. Keep 'em coming, something good should come out of this.
Considering who owns that place it definitely wouldn't be a good choice at all. Although I do have an account there, the mere log in process which everytime involves an extra confirmation code step through e-mail - simply because my Pale Moon clears everything on exit including their damn cookies - made me consistently avoid them. I even chose to post my Linux Mint Cinnamon applet in the Mint forum board rather than the Spices space, for that reason.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
Off-topic:
I suppose that that draws less attention on oneself than putting "[expletive deleted]" in place of expletives in quoted posts, but it's still the same idea behind why I quote the way that I do.
No offence intended at all towards you, moonbat, but I am going to defend TheRealMaestro here, because I actually do the same thing with my posts. The difference is, I tend to just not quote any portions of posts that use cusswords.
I suppose that that draws less attention on oneself than putting "[expletive deleted]" in place of expletives in quoted posts, but it's still the same idea behind why I quote the way that I do.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
IMHO it is just waste of time and cyberspace.
It is totally irrelevant who created Firefox extensions (noobs, average users, advanced users or users already familiar with some kind of coding).
People should better deal with the present instead of looking at the past through their own glasses.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
The past is a good thing,we learn from it and improve..IF certain groups are offended by the past then good that means we do not repeat it.gepus wrote: ↑2022-01-01, 10:18IMHO it is just waste of time and cyberspace.
It is totally irrelevant who created Firefox extensions (noobs, average users, advanced users or users already familiar with some kind of coding).
People should better deal with the present instead of looking at the past through their own glasses.
Unfortunately rose tinted historical revisionists with a hidden agenda are a hindrance to this goal.
user of multiple puppy linuxes..upup,fossapup.scpup,xenialpup.....
Pale moon 29.4.1
Pale moon 29.4.1
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
It's nothing about being offended by the past in my comment.
My point you missed is that if people look at the past only through their own glasses they perceive a distorted image of the past which can't solve present problems.
Re: Who created the extensions we use? (normal users vs experts discussion)
So according to you who perceives the past in an undistorted fashion.After all history is something either written or can be seen in a physical form.
here in the uk there is apparently an "issue" with colonialism and "our" perception of colonialism is wrong which is pathetic to be honest.
user of multiple puppy linuxes..upup,fossapup.scpup,xenialpup.....
Pale moon 29.4.1
Pale moon 29.4.1