Re: Link from themes manager to personas gallery - Theme discrimination
Mike Beltzner
there's anything that I could say to satisfy you.
Decisions for the Firefox product have never been made behind a closed door.
The Personas project has, like all others, been designed, developed and
discussed in the open. These decisions are not made by popular vote, but
your feedback is heard and understood. You have my commitment that I will
not remove support for XPI themes. Our users have my commitment that we will
continue to build the best product for the majority of users, to the best of
our ability to decide.
cheers,
mike
----- Original Message -----
From: dev-apps-firefox-bounces+beltzner=mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
<dev-apps-firefox-bounces+beltzner=mozil...@lists.mozilla.org>
To: dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org <dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org>
Sent: Fri Nov 20 09:53:30 2009
Subject: Re: Link from themes manager to personas gallery - ThemediscriminationHi,
thanks but i think it it helps only to start a new discussion.
First of all:
Who is We? Who decide it? Who had talked for the theme system?
I can’t remember only one Mozilla developer, who ever talks about his
theme experiences and i read now many years Mozilla blogs, discussions,
wikis and so on - not one. I have my doubt that many even care about
theme stuff and the few who cares works then probably only for the
default theme(s) ;-)
Another example: The first edition of the last redesign from
addons.mozilla.org had not even a theme listing. They removed the point
and added themes below Appearance together with tab stuff, new toolbars
and everything else. The themes were completely hidden and obviously
thought nobody that this is a problem.
A Mozilla guy for example, who has full time job to advertise Firefox,
compares theme systems from different browser talks then only about
Personas - can’t be true
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2009/08/29_vs_7000.html
I don’t think that all these We, who obviously don’t care about themes
stuff should alone decide, what happens with the theme system, behind
closed doors somewhere in Mountain View California.
----
Who cares about themes?
We have many many themes with 2 millions, 3 millions … one (very old)
with 23 millions or the current most popular with 10 millions downloads ...
Personas on the other hand has after some years and a lot of advertising
in the last mounts only 10 millions. Just for the record: 10 millions
are not a high number, when we consider the hype behind it and the
themes has nobody who hype them. They are actually more or less hidden.
I think a lot of user still care , what happens with themes.
----
Mike Conner talks the first time many months ago about these themes
system changes leaves many questions open. Your post answer not really
these questions and added actually a few more. For example: How should
it works, when Personas change the buttons and a theme do the same. It
is exactly the reason, why Personas on Mac OS X works only with the
default theme. Ok, stuff like this can be fixed, but who works now on a
concept to prevent bugs like this. Likely nobody. I think nobody cares -
only Personas counts now ;-)
-----
XPI themes will eventually be installed like extensions.
- It is then only logical to remove these extension-themes from the
theme selection of the Add-ons manager.
- They will be hidden somewhere in addons.mozilla.org. and many user
will not even know that these themes exist.
- Under this conditions will be many themes aborted … the theme
community will slowly die .. the documentation will die .. bugs will be,
sooner or later, fixed without a consideration of theme needs.
Without a doubt would it be the end of the current themes.
-----
"We believe that Personas are a better user experience than XPI Themes."
Without a restart is nice ;-) - naturally - And? Is this all?
Personas can do some things better and themes can do other things much
better.
This will be never changed. Personas can have many new user and themes
have already much more … i still don't understand why themes should be
hidden.
-----
I think Mozilla treated currently themer like stupid fogs in a cooking
pot .. and slowly increase the temperature .. everyone knows what will
happen ;-)
Suggestions like the XPI extensions-themes are for example maybe
something for frogs, but surely nothing for the themes community.
Cheers
> Hi Aronnax,
>
> I'll try to answer your questions in order; you asked many.
>
> We believe that Personas are a better user experience than XPI Themes.
> While not as robust or powerful, they are quick and easy for users to
> install, can be activated without requiring a restart, and are simple to
> create. Although not very old, the Personas Add-on has been downloaded
> by more than 10M people and is very popular.
>
> For that reason, we will be promoting Personas as a new, different type
> of theme that requires less commitment to install and use. They will be
> displayed on the first run page for Firefox 3.6 users, and the link in
> the Themes panel will go to the Personas gallery.
>
> Personas are still themes, though, just a different type. We hope to add
> more capability (ability to change the appearance of buttons, work with
> other XPI themes, etc) over time. XPI themes will eventually be
> installed like extensions, which better represents their capability and
> function; an XPI theme can totally change the "face" of the browser, not
> just the skin.
>
> We do not have any plans to remove support for XPI themes. We expect
> that most users will prefer to use Persona-style themes and will be
> investing in making those the preferred mechanism for quickly changing
> the appearance of the browser. However it would be foolish and against
> our values to remove the capability to customize the full appearance of
> the browser.
>
> I hope this helps,
> mike
>
> On 11/19/2009 6:31 PM, Aronnax wrote:
>> Hi,
>> this is a follow up to Bug 522571 - Link from themes manager to personas
>> gallery
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=522571
>>
>> The developer want the diccussion here.
>> Ok, here we go again ;-)
>>
>> > It is intended to have a page that is primarily personas, as you said.
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Why, please tell me why ;-)
>>
>> I think a lot of themer are interested to know, why their stuff should
>> be hidden and why this limited background image change system should be
>> highlighted. Why?
>>
>> Is it then as well intended to hide the normal extensions, when Jetpack
>> is later a part of the default installation?
>>
>> And when you are still on the way to tell some reasons.
>> Why works Personas on 3.6 by default only with the default themes. Is it
>> still intended to change it with 3.7 or later. Why works the Personas
>> 1.4 extension still only on Mac OS X only with the default theme and why
>> is there absolutely no progress in the last months to improve the
>> situation.
>>
>> By the way,
>> i know a lot of themer, who think Mozilla want to kill the old theme
>> system. Some words as well about it would be very nice. It is hard to
>> find an example that something else is intended. This theme page
>> primarily for Personas is then only one example more.
>>
>> Cheers
>> _______________________________________________
>> dev-apps-firefox mailing list
>> dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org
>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-apps-firefox
>
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Aronnax
you could - Mozilla should - update stuff like this:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Mconnor/PersonasUplift
Inparticular for example: "Deprecation of old-style themes"
is very unclear and not helpful.
To clear some open questions (sooner) to prevent for example something
like this: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=8023225#p8023225
----
Bug 522571 - Link from themes manager to personas gallery
is a unbounded cheek for the theme community.
Only a site with both kind of themes is a fair solution and as far as i
see it, will we not have a fair solution - not helpful.
----
And suggestions like the XPI extensions-themes are as well not helpful.
I think the theme community would be extremly unhappy, when their stuff
should be banned from the Themes Add-ons Manager selection ;-)
----
And when themes will still have an own selection on addons.mozilla.org -
would it be helpful.
Who knows, i would be not surprised to find sooner or later only
Personas stuff under the current Themes selection ;-)
Cheers
Shawn Wilsher
> you could - Mozilla should - update stuff like this:
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Mconnor/PersonasUplift
> Inparticular for example: "Deprecation of old-style themes"
> is very unclear and not helpful.
date? It's a proposal for how to uplift on his user page. It is, by no
means, an official document or policy.
The current work on it is being tracked here:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/Personas_Uplift_Exploration
> Bug 522571 - Link from themes manager to personas gallery
> is a unbounded cheek for the theme community.
> Only a site with both kind of themes is a fair solution and as far as i
> see it, will we not have a fair solution - not helpful.
Well, themes can be searched for in the add-ons manager in the Get
Add-ons section and Personas cannot currently.
> And suggestions like the XPI extensions-themes are as well not helpful.
> I think the theme community would be extremly unhappy, when their stuff
> should be banned from the Themes Add-ons Manager selection ;-)
Shipping a theme as an XPI instead of a jar has virtually no difference
(although you can do more in the XPI than you could do with a jar in a
sane manner). We've never said it would be banned in the add-ons manager.
/sdwilsh
Aronnax
> You are complaining that an 11 month old proposal document is out of
> date? It's a proposal for how to uplift on his user page. It is, by no
> means, an official document or policy.
>
It was more an example for an unclear communication.
Without documents like this - exspecially this - would we not have this
disccusion.
> Well, themes can be searched for in the add-ons manager in the Get
> Add-ons section and Personas cannot currently.
Personas cannot currently - only currently - change it ;-)
> Shipping a theme as an XPI instead of a jar has virtually no difference
> (although you can do more in the XPI than you could do with a jar in a
> sane manner). We've never said it would be banned in the add-ons manager.
But it would be also not logical to have an extension there ;-)
Cheers
Dave Townsend
I'm not really sure what the original intent of the statement "XPI
themes will eventually be installed like extensions" was, since XPI
themes are already installed exactly like extensions are so I don't
think there needs to be any discussion on it really.