Filed under: Design, Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla, Browser Tips
Firefox add-on page gets overhauled
by Ryan Sullivan Feb 18th 2007 at 3:00PM
Lots of big changes going on in the add-on area of the Mozilla website. A Mozilla add-on can be any of the following: Extension, theme, dictionaries in different languages (for FF 2.0's spell checker functionality), search engine or a plugin. The biggest change is my personal favorite: The addition of the much anticipated Sandbox. If you go to the add-on site, you are only looking at public add-ons. However, those are just the tip of the iceberg. If you go to the add-on site and log into your account you will be able to activate the Sandbox feature. This allows you to view extensions before they are made public. These type of add-ons are either just getting started, being updated, or getting their final polish before being pushed to the public side. In order to be able to view the Sandbox add-ons, you first have to activate the feature. To do so, just log into your account and click on your user name, to the right of the search bar, and just check the box. Then you will be able to view either the Sandbox add-ons or the Public ones by clicking on the links labeled so on the top of the page.
Even more great features, after the jump...
Other updated/new features include the following:
- New status bar at the top of the page. This is complete with a "breadcrumbs" path view of your current location in the add-on site, a new search bar and then your user name, which is a link to get to your personal profile, and logout option. This status bar stays with you where ever you go on the add-on site.
- Side navigation bar got a little bit of an update with some new links added to it for plugins and search engines and is also always viewable no matter where you are on the add-on site.
- You are now capable of viewing all previous versions of the add-on.
- Better search results due to the new way the add-ons are categorized and the way the words you are searching for are weighted.
- Can now login once for both regular use as well as developer use for those of you that make all these great add-on for the Mozilla suite of products.
- The categories for each type of add-on has been updated.
- "Better RSS feed options including per category, search results and more."
- Java pop-up windows for images.
- Multiple language support (pull-down menu at the bottom of the page for language choice).
Another great new feature is the use of collapsing browse and search results. When you search, your results are initially collapsed, with only the title of the add-on and a brief blurb visible. You can expand the results to see a little bit more of the description blurb as well as a preview picture or just click on the add-on's name to get the full specs.
With all of these great changes, you can expect to see a lot more add-ons from me. I encourage you to give the new site a test run. I expect to hear from more great suggestions; Keep them coming.
UPDATE: As I was writing this article, addons.mozilla.org (AMO) V3 was live, but now it is not. They must still be working out some of the bugs. But they do have a preview site up that is basically a copy of the Mozilla site that has AMO V3 up and running. So feel free to give that a look at while the developers are still ironing out some more kinks from the new site. I'll do another update after V3 has been up for several hours.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ganesh said 8:48PM on 2-18-2007
"Java pop-up windows for images." ?!?
Its javascript not java :) Uses thickbox which IIRC is derived from lightbox.
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