Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog
Categories: compatibility developers documentation

Add-ons Update – 2017/04

20 responses

Here’s the state of the add-ons world this month.

The Road to Firefox 57 (recently updated) explains what developers should look forward to in regards to add-on compatibility for the rest of the year. Please give it a read if you haven’t already.

The Review Queues

In the past month, 1,209 listed add-on submissions were reviewed:

  • 984 (81%) were reviewed in fewer than 5 days.
  • 31 (3%) were reviewed between 5 and 10 days.
  • 194 (16%) were reviewed after more than 10 days.

There are 821 listed add-ons awaiting review.

If you’re an add-on developer and are looking for contribution opportunities, please consider joining us. Add-on reviewers are critical for our success, and can earn cool gear for their work. Visit our wiki page for more information.

Compatibility

The blog post for 53 is up and the bulk validation was run. Here’s the post for Firefox 54 and the bulk validation is pending.

Multiprocess Firefox is enabled for some users, and will be deployed for most users very soon. Make sure you’ve tested your add-on and either use WebExtensions or set the multiprocess compatible flag in your add-on manifest.

As always, we recommend that you test your add-ons on Beta to make sure that they continue to work correctly. You may also want  to review the post about upcoming changes to the Developer Edition channel.

End users can install the Add-on Compatibility Reporter to identify and report any add-ons that aren’t working anymore.

Recognition

We would like to thank the following people for their recent contributions to the add-ons world:

  • bkzhang
  • Aayush Sanghavi
  • saintsebastian
  • Thomas Wisniewski
  • Michael Kohler
  • Martin Giger
  • Andre Garzia
  • jxpx777
  • wildsky

You can read more about their work in our recognition page.

20 comments on “Add-ons Update – 2017/04”

  1. S-ed wrote on

    Greetings.
    Even while I’m concerned about the way FF goes, I’m not the one who are allowed to judge. Yet I have right of choice, a little bit limited, but still…we’re free to go.

    I have a question about theming:
    Will it be possible to alter FF57 look with Stylish addon as it possible now?
    In contrary of rigid Chrome look, I could alter look of ANY element. Could hide it, move it.

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      There’s a Chrome version of Stylish, so it’s likely that it will be migrated in the future to WebExtensions. They haven’t submitted that version yet, however, and I don’t know its status.

  2. Pierre-Adrien wrote on

    Hey guys ! I’ve been having troubles having my addon reviewed the last two times I’ve submitted a new version. I’ve changed my build process and now upload the source alongside the addon (even if the generated source code is still readable according to the last reviewer), does this automatically makes the process longer ? I’m totally OK with waiting a few days to be approved (it was quite smooth before my change of build process), but I’ve submitted the last version 10 days ago, and I’m still 169/265 in the review queue… so I’m wondering if there’s a problem with the way I submit my addon. If anyone can help, do not hesitate 🙂

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      If the add-on requires additional source inspection, it’s automatically flagged for admin review, which takes longer. Given the current state of the queue, unfortunately, that means at least a couple of weeks worth of waiting. We’re getting more reviewers onboard in the future and we’re making bigger changes in the next couple of months to make the review queues a much smaller problem.

      1. Pierre-Adrien wrote on

        Oh OK, I understand now, I was suspecting something like this. Thanks a lot for the heads-up Jorge. I suppose I could re-upload a new version of my addon without the source since the last reviewer told me it was understable without it, and it might cut down the waiting time for the new version of my addon. Thanks a lot for your work, I can understand that this is a problem for you as well, and I’m sure you guys are doing your best 🙂

  3. john wrote on

    hardly any addons work now i had 6 not one of them works anymore but luckily i found opera not only can you use opera addons but every chrome extension you want and they all work 100% i guess firefox doesnt care that all your addons dont work at all scores 365—are you watching this—twitter—imagus—tab notifier—the list goes on very dissapointed oh well what can you do have a great day bye bye firefox r.i.p

  4. MIZANUR RAHMAN wrote on

    GOOD

  5. That Random Guy wrote on

    So, still noting for CTR? Guess you folks can’t read, can you?

    A person with visual disabilities has EXPLAINED to you in plain English as to WHY your stupid default design is insufficient.

    You NEED to allow for functions that mimic CTR in some way come FF 57.

    There is no “can’t do it” or “nope” anymore. This is a necessity. Your UI is just not intuitive or useful. People use CTR because it HELPS. It fixes the error you’ve committed to, known as Australis.

    Again, it’s common sense to allow users to tweak with the UI. People like me need it for better efficiency in terms of usability. In some cases, it allows it entirely.

    I may not understand the specifics and the jargon, but CTR most likely provides no security vulnerability. It just styles the browser up. Big whoop.

    I NEED you guys to take this seriously. Otherwise, I’ll have to switch to a browser that follows non-Australis layouts.

    1. john wrote on

      maybe you need to put your post in another language as they dont seem to understand english on here

    2. heubergen wrote on

      I think people with disabilities went always better when they used a Mac and the Safari browser, other big companies like Google, Microsoft or Mozilla doens’t care about this specified customers.

      1. That Random Guy wrote on

        I’m asking for something as simple as UI customization. Just BASIC UI requirements. I’m not going to ask them to implement everything CTR did, but they should at least revert to what FF used to allow. They used to be able to allow tabs on the bottom. All of the sudden that became TABOO for them and they removed that feature. I have no clue as to why they would do that and I think they’re really tying themselves a noose here. Why they’re not going to allow for developers to interact with the UI elements anymore is beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with browser proficiency (i.e. speed). I honestly don’t care if Firefox is slower than Chrome. I use it because it’s not Chrome. Instead, I want to be able to tweak around with the UI so that it’s usable to some extent. They keep moving in the WRONG direction and are putting all of us loyal users on the casket.

  6. john wrote on

    but i have to admit jorge is the only person on here that actually fully reads a post and replies so he one of the good guys at firefox i trust

  7. Vladimir wrote on

    Hey guys,
    We submitted our add-ons 33 days ago. The query position is still 82 of 266 .
    How long do we have to wait?
    Vladimir

  8. John B wrote on

    Is it usual for an add-on to take upwards of 2 months for a plugin to be accepted? I understand that the queue isn’t processed in order, but for a 313 (115 are an SVG) line plugin, 60 days to get from position 390 to 108 seems a little on the slow side.

    I’d like to be able to help with the review process, but I doubt I’d of much help seeing as the above is my total knowledge of Mozilla plugins. In fact – seeing as this is for use in our office – I’d be willing to throw money at the problem, although there are possibly issues with paying to have a plugin accepted…

  9. Lay wrote on

    Why in firefox 53 this plugin is corrupted?
    https://addons.mozilla.org/it/firefox/addon/adfly-skipper/

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      According to the listing page, it was recently updated to make it work.

  10. kroppy wrote on

    I have two questions:
    – Do you have any plans for Hiding Tab strip via Web extensions?
    – tab.openerTabId is not supported, will that be implemented?

    Those above options are crucial for nesting tabs in Tree Style Tabs, my Tree Tabs, and any grouping tabs manager for this matter.

    Oh, and before I forget, is there any way to open any “about:” page in a new tab? I have ported my extension from Vivaldi/Opera and I have toolbar above tabs in which I have buttons for options, addons, history, and bookmarks. For bookmarks and history it would be cool to be able to open sidebars via javascript.
    Thanks

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on

      I’m not sure about your questions. You can look for open tab bugs or file your own if you don’t find it.

      I don’t think it’s possible to open about: pages for security reasons.

  11. Brendan wrote on

    Just more doubling down on an idea that was bad from the get-go. There is nothing here for developers, let alone users, to “look forward to”. Just the decimation of the thriving ecosystem of great extensions, for no good reason.

  12. Dennis wrote on

    I have been using just 1 add-on since FF3. the developer fixed it when something like ff23 broke it (it needs the status bar, so he wrote it to work with the add-on bar) but now it appears there is no hope for it with this webextensions update. It was this add-on that kept me with FF, but since it will no longer work the way I want it to, so long FF.