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Add-ons for Australis Contest Winners

28 responses

The results are in for the Add-ons for Australis contest. The judges have selected the add-on entries that best capture Firefox 29’s new design and customization features, so check them out for yourselves! Congratulations to the winners!

Best Overall

1st Place – The Fox, Only Better

by quicksaver
Maximizes browser viewing space while keeping it user-friendly.

Absolutely magnificent. This add-on works like a charm and will not only give you back maximum browser screen space, it does it in very cool style.

2nd Place – Classic Theme Restorer

by Aris
Restore squared tabs, appmenu, add-ons bar, small button view and more in Firefox 29.

3rd Place – Profilist

by Noitidart
Inlays a simple and quick access profile manager into the new panel-based main menu. Designed for the Australis update to Firefox.

Best Bookmark

1st Place – QuickMark

by Martijn
QuickMark provides a lightning-fast way for creating bookmarks and keeping them organized. Create and place them in a folder in one mouse sweep or use the shortcuts so your hands won’t need to leave the keyboard.

I do a lot of Internet research reviewing and returning to specific web pages under changing topics – often bookmarking 20 out of 200 pages. I’ve gotten so tired of the normal process of getting to the bookmark dialog. Thank you so much for this simple, elegant and quick bookmarking tool.

2nd Place – Feed Sidebar

by Chris
The Feed Sidebar is an extension for Firefox that displays the items from your Live Bookmarks in the sidebar.

3rd Place – What about:

by petzichen
Type in “What about:” in your awesome bar to see a list of “About:” Firefox URLs.

Best Complete Theme

1st Place – Noia Fox

by David
An old favorite, completely updated for Firefox 29.

I use multiple Firefox profiles to organize my work as a coder. David Vincent’s Noia Fox theme + Noia Fox options is an integral part of that setup: I can skin each profile with a different persona while keeping the same basic look and feel.

2nd Place – MX3

by dkgo
Compact and elegant theme for Firefox 29.

3rd Place – Walnut for Firefox

by Alfred
Walnut for a wooden look and feel. Walnut is a complete skin redesign so that all windows, widgets, panels, and many extensions have a wooden look and feel.

28 comments on “Add-ons for Australis Contest Winners”

  1. Spritz900 wrote on

    I’m an average user that uses Firefox just because I don’t trust Google and can’t get over the bad taste of old versions of IE for all those years.

    My thoughts….

    BEST OVERALL
    summary – I’m disappointed that there really isn’t anything that’s useful here for the casual user. Only for power users.
    1. About “The Fox, Only Better” :: This really needs to be more aptly named. Should make clear that it makes more screen space available. It’s a very pretty however I would not classify this as an add-on. This is a glorified theme because some tweaks I guess are not able to be done from the theme scope?
    2. About “Classic Theme Restorer” :: Now this one is a total surprise. It’s absolutely fantastic that a user out there is giving all the “Australis stinks” whiners an add-on to revert to what they want. However this contest was about creating add-ons that goes along the lines of “Australis”. This add-author is doing fantastic work in supporting all the old stuff and shut up those whiners.
    3. About “Profilist” :: Useful for developers only I would think. Your average users, I would guess >90%, don’t use multiple profiles. Pretty as well. Disappointed that something so small as a profile switcher made it to the top 3. Shouldn’t Firefox already have something for this? Like the name though, very creative.

    BEST BOOKMARK
    summary: I was hoping for some innovative add-on here that would bring the bookmarks toolbar to life. Disappointed we don’t have that yet. The bookmark toolbar is really clunky and hasn’t got any advancement in years.
    1. About “QuickMark” :: I kind of like this. I’ll update it as I use this more.
    2. About “Feed Sidebar” :: I have been wanting to use feeds for a long time but nothing really fits nice in a browser interface. Always makes it feel cluttered. Lookwise, this one is no different. But it’s very feature packed, I like it. Hope one day to have a streamlined interface that doesn’t waste browser space. Maybe like desktop notifications style feeds.
    3. About “What about:” :: I saw the picture on the add-on site and really want to use this. It looks really useful. All the hidden gems in Firefox are exposed (like memory). It looks like it follows the Australis theme too. I just can’t figure out how to make this work.

    BEST COMPLETE THEME
    summary: I’m not a theme user. All I have to say is all three are pretty but the #1 winner in this category SHOULD have been “The Fox, Only Better” (even the name sounds like a theme name). Unlike the other themes, “The Fox, Only Better” really sticks to the Australis theme. These other themes just completely take away the look of Australis.

    1. Spritz900 wrote on

      These add-ons actually lead me to an issue with Firefox. When using a different profile, in my Windows 7 taskbar, they are not separated. All profiles are lumped into one Firefox icon. Shouldn’t a different profile be a separate group on the task bar?

      1. Noitidart wrote on

        Yeah man, separating them was apart of my original design notes, but it’s real intricate I can’t separate it. Same situation on WinXP.

    2. Spritz900 wrote on

      Just figured out how to use “what about:” and my expectations were not met. It’s an icon in the navigation bar. I was thinking as I typed “about:” into the URL bar a beautiful panel would pop down giving me suggestions of what all is available with pretty icons.

    3. Quicksaver wrote on

      Spritz900, I can only speak on behalf of The Fox, Only Better, as I’m its creator.

      It is not a theme, it is in fact an add-on. A theme changes only the looks of things (colors, shapes, icons and little else). It’s true that the add-on has only *one* feature to speak of, but it goes much beyond just changing the look, it changes the way you interact with your browser. To think of it as a theme is, in my opinion, just wrong because of that and so I have to disagree with you on that.

      Also to that point, and about its name, I mention its reason in its description: “Because the add-on doesn’t change how the browser works, it only improves how it feels using it.” This basically means that firefox is still all there, but how you interact with it is (hopefully) better.

      I also mention in the developer page that I plan to add many (many!) more features. But with a lot to do and so little time to do it, I had to prioritize. So, of course I would not name an add-on after only a single feature, if it’s meant to have more in the future. 😉

      1. Spritz900 wrote on

        Hi Quicksaver and thanks for your reply. Take for instance the names “The Addon-bar Restored” vs “The Puzzle Piece”. First one is an add-on and second one as you know is your own. Then look at the downloads. The first has 150k+ downloads, while yours, which is lightweight, speedy, and better looking, only has ~10k downloads. This should be a lesson learned in naming right there.

        1. Quicksaver wrote on

          It’s true, my add-ons suffer a bit from their names, you’re not the first to mention this, and you likely won’t be the last. 🙂

          But like I said, I can’t name them based only on one of their features, because they are not “single feature add-ons” like The Add-on Bar Restored is in your example (technically, TheFOB is for now, but that will change in the future).

          In the case of TPP, it started way before Australis came, while the add-on bar was still a sure thing. It does have the added feature to add back the add-on bar in australis (now), but that only came after. And even if it hadn’t, I couldn’t rename it to something like “Restore Add-on Bar’er” now because that wasn’t the main point of the add-on from the start, and in part still isn’t.

          I stand by my naming choices as they relate to their function/goal, and I don’t see the difference in downloads as a reason for them being poorly named. And don’t take my stubbornness the wrong way, I do appreciate your input, I just don’t agree with your opinion. 🙂

          1. Spritz900 wrote on

            I’m honored a developer is taking the time to talk to me. But please have an open mind. Please keep in mind that you are designing for Firefox. They are streamlining. Please follow in their footsteps. Please read these articles, I feel they are critical for old add-on developers to transition with Firefox and their goals.

            http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/
            http://www.stephenhorlander.com/2014/05/redesigning-firefox/

            I’ve been fascinated by Australis so I’ve been reading a lot blogs.

          2. Noitidart wrote on

            The articles spritz mentions are superb! I am a strong supporter of that limi article. But sprtiz, I think Firefox is moving more in a direction of “usability” rather than “streamlining” though.

            If you put a bunch of functions in an addon, people won’t know about it. You want to make things available so they can be usable. You know? Hidden gems and stuff are no fun. Unless the hidden gems are useless then its fun to discover them.

      2. Michael Kenward wrote on

        Intrigued by the plug, I went and looked at the landing page for “The Fox, Only Better”.

        After reading that page, event the bit “About this Add-on”, I haven’t got a clue as to what it does.

        All “touchy feely” but baffling all the same.

        1. Quicksaver wrote on

          If you have any suggestions as to how better explain what the add-on does in its description I would welcome them, personally I don’t know how to better explain it by words. Also there’s screenshots, do you think those are not illustrative enough either?

    4. Noitidart wrote on

      Well Profilist can be used for families. Like you can make an account for yourself and one for your dog. So his saved information (passwords, cookies, etc) don’t interfere with yours. So you don’t have to log out someone else to log yourself in.

      Thanks for the name thing man I like it too. 🙂

    5. Hampel Rutledge wrote on

      The Restorer Add on may not have added something new but it is much appreciated by those of us who have to explain the sudden changes to 200 + users every time the interface changes. Change can be good but change just because someone thinks it looks better can be destructive. Can you imagine how many hours each change ripples thru my days and weeks? Hoo Ray for the person who brought back the “Old” way.

  2. Noitidart wrote on

    Dang almost!! 3rd! I wanted that mug… haha

    Can we post this on the addons.mozilla.org page, this page here gets like no visibility. 🙁

    Thanks to all the judges (and those that influenced them) 🙂

    1. Amy Tsay wrote on

      Here’s the bug for promoting winners on the AMO homepage 🙂 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1009759

  3. JNR wrote on

    ANYONE KNOW OF A F’FOX ADD-ON THAT CAN SAVE YOUR COMPLETE LOGIN/PASSWORD FILE???

    1. Noitidart wrote on

      “Password Exporter” – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/password-exporter/

      I use it, it’s great especially when I was moving between a lot of computers. It has encryption on the files too as an option.

    2. Lakeland Rose wrote on

      There are addons that store your passwords in a cloud so you have access to them synced across all your devices and, with a touch more difficulty, from your friend’s computer. They’re securely encrypted, stored and backed up. I’ve used Lastpass for a few years. It also fills forms and you can have different sets of contact details such as home, work, holiday cottage, parents house, anonymous. They also offered me a check to see if any of my passwords had been compromised by the Heartbleed virus. My cousin’s son, who is a programmer, uses Keypass. You can use them with different browsers and different operating systems.

  4. Shelley wrote on

    Maybe if you made Firefox plug-ins work right, MULTIFOX would be as good as it was in Firefox v26 (or somewhere around that version)!!!

  5. Tom Ve wrote on

    While I love Firefox and agree that it is yet the best I’net browser, its handling of the memory heap is pitiful. Firefox is a memory gobbler because it fails to clean the heap and as one navigates it keeps sucking memory without releasing it when a page or tab is closed. In this respect Firefox is the worst browser on the block.
    Address this issue folks at Mozilla – quickly!
    Tom

  6. Bruno Gun wrote on

    Unfortunately Forecast Fox 2.2.2 does NOT work on Firefox 29.
    I love to use this browser but since other weather forecast add ons did not work properly, I had to return to the previous version. Hope it will get fixed soon.

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      Unfortunately, the Forecast Fox add-on seems to be abandoned. I would recommend that you look for alternative add-ons, unless you want to remain stuck with a version that will eventually be unsafe to use.

    2. Noitidart wrote on

      You can use this weather add-on that was made for Australis:

      https://github.com/mozillamsu/australis-weather-widget

      I can’t find it on AMO (addons.mozilla.org) I hope the devs are working to making it better than Forecast Fox. But download “GitHub Extension Installer” from AMO and then you can install it out of the github link.

  7. errol wrote on

    Why did you remove the ever handy favourites sidebar icon/button? Which opened the sidebar but did not effect the current page.I am left with Firefox or Bookmarks dropdowns which open the bookmarks NEW tab and the sidebar which cover the page I am using. How can I find or make the sidebar button? Thanks Errol

    1. Noitidart wrote on

      Use OmniSidebar by Quicksilver :: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/omnisidebar/?src=ss

      1. Quicksaver wrote on

        Quicksaver 😉 And FYI, Firefox 30 will have a new sidebars button, a bit similar to OSB’s button, in function at least.

        But yeah, OmniSidebar’s the bomb! (I’m shameless.) 🙂

  8. Yunier J wrote on

    The article in Spanish
    http://firefoxmania.uci.cu/conoce-los-complementos-ganadores-del-concurso-para-australis/

    Regards

    1. Amy Tsay wrote on

      Awesome, thanks!