On Tuesday January 7th we will be putting Add-on Builder into read-only mode, meaning that it will no longer be possible to create new add-ons or change existing projects on the site. Users will still be able to access their projects until April 2014, when we will turn off the service entirely. During this period we recommend developers download their existing projects, and we will continue to communicate this change throughout this period.
Update: to be clear, Builder will also not be updated to use SDK 1.15.
Why we’ve made this decision
Recently we took a look at how developers are using Builder. What we found is that while many developers have tried out Builder, very few ( less than 1% ) ever actually publish their add-on to AMO. Additionally, the most popular SDK-based add-ons on AMO are instead built by developers using our command-line tools. As a result, we decided it makes most sense to focus our efforts and resources here.
What’s next
The Firefox Developer Tools team has introduced the Browser Console and Browser Debugger / Toolbox to improve the debugging experience for both Firefox developers and Add-on developers. We will be continuing to look for ways to leverage the work we’ve done recently to help extension authors specifically. Watch this blog for more news over the next couple of months.
Handy links
- Builder: http://builder.addons.mozilla.org/
- Builder’s source code on Github: https://github.com/mozilla/FlightDeck
- The Add-on Debugger proposal, intern presentation and tracking bug.
- Discuss this blog post in the Jetpack Google Group