attention dictionary providers, or: warning, AMO sucks
Robert Kaiser
You probably know we were asked to upload our dictionaries for Firefox
2, Thunderbird 2, SeaMonkey 1.1 and above to AMO (addons.mozilla.org).
Now, we did that with minVersion of 2.0b1 and maxVersion of 2.0b2
(talking only Firefox versions here) for most of those extensions, as
AMO didn't allow anything higher at that time. Now that RCs are using
2.0 as their version, it's time to go to the developer control panel of
AMO and set maxVersion to 2.0.0.* - but be careful there, as doing only
that will not work as expected!
Due to a AMO bug, <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=356435>,
version checking at AMO sucks majorly and it will think there are no
compatible versions as it thinks that 2.0b1 > 2.0.0.* somehow.
So, please set your minVersion to 2.0 at the same time.
This will make your dictionary extension incompatible with those betas,
but AMO gets it correctly far enough to make it compatible with any 2.0
version, i.e. RCs, final and security updates.
AMO people tell me they are trying to fix this bug really fast, so
please check if it might have been fixed already before doing your
actual settings.
Once it's really fixed, it's probably correct to set maxVersion to FF/TB
3.0a1 and SeaMonkey 1.5a as current trunk nightlies (and probably even
any release based on Gecko 1.9) are supported by those dictionaries as well.
Just don't forget to set your dictionaries compatible with upcoming
final and security release, or you'll probably get a load of user
complaints ;-)
Robert Kaiser
Ricardo Palomares Martinez
> Hi everybody providing dictionaries at AMO,
>
> You probably know we were asked to upload our dictionaries for Firefox
> 2, Thunderbird 2, SeaMonkey 1.1 and above to AMO (addons.mozilla.org).
>
> Now, we did that with minVersion of 2.0b1 and maxVersion of 2.0b2
> (talking only Firefox versions here) for most of those extensions, as
> AMO didn't allow anything higher at that time. Now that RCs are using
> 2.0 as their version, it's time to go to the developer control panel of
> AMO and set maxVersion to 2.0.0.* - but be careful there, as doing only
> that will not work as expected!
Even worse, I didn't create (nor upload) the es-ES dictionary
extension at that time, but later, and Benjamin Smedberg's webapp set
Thunderbird maxVersion to 2.0.0.* and SeaMonkey maxVersion to 1.1, but
AMO still doesn't let me upload the extension because those numbers
are not in their valid versions list.
I know I can manually modify those number, but it's not clear to me
why a regular extension developer can't upload their extension stating
that it will work on forthcoming versions of products that shouldn't
change their behaviour or APIs anyway.
Ricardo.
--
If it's true that we are here to help others,
then what exactly are the OTHERS here for?
Axel Hecht
What makes you think so? "Shouldn't" really says "shouldn't", there are
oh-so-many things that shouldn't go wrong, yet they do. That's why we
have maxVersion in the first place. Or even minVersion (shouldn't we all
be using the current version?).
And which version number are we talking about? SeaMonkey, Thunderbird or
both? Which are allowed? Has Benjamin's tool been fixed in the meantime?
I don't think that maxVersion should be the biggest problem around, I
would expect that you could bump maxVersion without actually uploading
an extension again. If you need a reviewer for that, we should get a
post out to the reviewers at amo to sign off those bumps quicker.
Axel
João Miguel Neves
> I don't think that maxVersion should be the biggest problem around, I
> would expect that you could bump maxVersion without actually uploading
> an extension again. If you need a reviewer for that, we should get a
> post out to the reviewers at amo to sign off those bumps quicker.
Not allowing to specify future versions of Firefox as compatible will
render Firefox security updates useless. Users will simply not upgrade
and wait a few weeks or months until most extensions bump up their max
version.
The other option is using an extension to fake the version of the
browser (most of us have used that throughout the development of 2.0).
In any case, it makes the whole minVersion/maxVersion "feature" useless.
So the question for me is: if it makes sense, why does everyone keeps
going around it?
Best regards,
João Miguel Neves
Axel Hecht
> Sáb, 2006-10-14 às 02:23 +0200, Axel Hecht escreveu:
>> I don't think that maxVersion should be the biggest problem around, I
>> would expect that you could bump maxVersion without actually uploading
>> an extension again. If you need a reviewer for that, we should get a
>> post out to the reviewers at amo to sign off those bumps quicker.
>
> Not allowing to specify future versions of Firefox as compatible will
> render Firefox security updates useless. Users will simply not upgrade
> and wait a few weeks or months until most extensions bump up their max
> version.
You do understand that Robert didn't complain about the Firefox
maxVersion not working, right? Please, please, don't rant about stuff
that is resolved for ages.
> The other option is using an extension to fake the version of the
> browser (most of us have used that throughout the development of 2.0).
>
> In any case, it makes the whole minVersion/maxVersion "feature" useless.
> So the question for me is: if it makes sense, why does everyone keeps
> going around it?
Because they don't know what's going on. Both SeaMonkey and Thunderbird
releases on the 1.8 stage are some in alpha or pre-alpha, and may
undergo serious changes. Adding their stable release tree to the allowed
maxVersions on AMO is just a no-go.
Axel
Jesper Kristensen
> Hi everybody providing dictionaries at AMO,
>
> You probably know we were asked to upload our dictionaries for Firefox
> 2, Thunderbird 2, SeaMonkey 1.1 and above to AMO (addons.mozilla.org).
>
Do you have any idea of when it will be possible to upload the dictionary
instead of just getting the error "You do not have permissions to edit this
add-on."? (Talking about the danish dictionary)
João Miguel Neves
> You do understand that Robert didn't complain about the Firefox
> maxVersion not working, right? Please, please, don't rant about stuff
> that is resolved for ages.
>
Ricardo mixed. Sorry for the noise.
Robert Kaiser
> Due to a AMO bug, <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=356435>,
> version checking at AMO sucks majorly and it will think there are no
> compatible versions as it thinks that 2.0b1 > 2.0.0.* somehow.
OK, this bug is fixed now and you can even set versions to 2.0b1-3.0a1
for Firefox and Thunderbird and 1.1a-1.5a for SeaMonkey in AMO developer
control panel now, and it still works.
Those settings are also what I'd recommend for dictionaries (and ONLY
for those), as the code to pick up and use dictionaries is actually core
code and the same for all those products. The major recent change was
only the directory location, which was chosen in a way that it will stay
compatible for the foreseeable future.
Trunk nightlies of all those products, including the experimental
toolkit-based SeaMonkey configuration internally dubbed "suiterunner",
work with the dictionary packages as provided by bsmedberg's tool (as
long as you get AMO to accept it on upload and the set the version
ranges as mentioned above).
Again, do NOT set such a version range for any random extensions, as
there's no guarantee something working in a pre-beta, alpha or even
pre-alpha will work in a final release of any of those apps. For
dictionaries, it should be a fairly safe choice though, as how and where
to install dictionaries has been made as a long-term choice that should
hold up at least until Gecko 1.9-based releases will be made.
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> Do you have any idea of when it will be possible to upload the
> dictionary instead of just getting the error "You do not have
> permissions to edit this add-on."? (Talking about the danish dictionary)
Works/worked flawlessly for me with German dictionaries. It may be a
good idea to stop by at #amo on irc.mozilla.org and ask what's going
wrong in your case (best during US business hours).
Robert Kaiser
Jesper Kristensen
Michael Lefevre
<moznew...@something.to.remove.jesperkristensen.dk> wrote:
> Robert Kaiser wrote:
...
>> good idea to stop by at #amo on irc.mozilla.org and ask what's going
>> wrong in your case (best during US business hours).
>>
Depends which business, and where in the US. For this, I imagine after
17:00 UTC (until late at night) would be ok...
--
Michael
Ricardo Palomares Martinez
> Ricardo Palomares Martinez wrote:
>> Even worse, I didn't create (nor upload) the es-ES dictionary
>> extension at that time, but later, and Benjamin Smedberg's webapp set
>> Thunderbird maxVersion to 2.0.0.* and SeaMonkey maxVersion to 1.1, but
>> AMO still doesn't let me upload the extension because those numbers
>> are not in their valid versions list.
>>
>> I know I can manually modify those number, but it's not clear to me
>> why a regular extension developer can't upload their extension stating
>> that it will work on forthcoming versions of products that shouldn't
>> change their behaviour or APIs anyway.
>
> What makes you think so? "Shouldn't" really says "shouldn't", there are
> oh-so-many things that shouldn't go wrong, yet they do. That's why we
> have maxVersion in the first place. Or even minVersion (shouldn't we all
> be using the current version?).
I see. I have the feeling that both SM and TB are almost finished and
in a final polishing stage, but this is just a feeling.
> And which version number are we talking about? SeaMonkey, Thunderbird or
> both? Which are allowed? Has Benjamin's tool been fixed in the meantime?
- Both, SeaMonkey 1.1 and Thunderbird 2.0.0.*
- SeaMonkey 1.1a and Thunderbird 2.0b1 (and trunk versions)
- Actually, I faced this problem at first with Firefox too, AMO didn't
accept Firefox maxVersion set by Benjamin's tool at that time. I
just waited and tried again recently, building again the XPI, and
the problem persists, only with different version numbers.
As I said before, not a big deal, because the install.rdf can be
easily modified to fit. It's just that I find the version control a
bit too tight, but it's just me.
> I don't think that maxVersion should be the biggest problem around, I
> would expect that you could bump maxVersion without actually uploading
> an extension again. If you need a reviewer for that, we should get a
> post out to the reviewers at amo to sign off those bumps quicker.
Not really, the actual "problem" is that I've been unable at all to
upload the extension because of version control. If Fx2 launch gets
close enough and the problem persists, I'll simply modify install.rdf
(the XPI has been tested in our mailing list and it works right).