{"id":670,"date":"2009-06-04T14:17:30","date_gmt":"2009-06-04T21:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/addons\/?p=670"},"modified":"2009-06-04T14:17:30","modified_gmt":"2009-06-04T21:17:30","slug":"firefox-mobile-add-ons-one-small-step-for-mankind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/addons\/2009\/06\/04\/firefox-mobile-add-ons-one-small-step-for-mankind\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefox Mobile Add-ons – One Small Step for Mankind"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a re-post<\/a> from Mozilla community member & add-on developer Brian King<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

By small in the title, I mean small devices. One large step was taken in the Fennec add-ons ecosystem over the weekend at the Mozilla\/Maemo get together<\/a> in Copenhagen<\/a> [pictures<\/a>, tweets<\/a>]. Present were a large chunk of the Fennec developement team<\/a>, add-on developers, localisers, and community members. We shared the space with Maemo<\/a> developers and community members, and while there was not much overlap during sessions and hacking, there were some useful discussions on how we can work better together. The weekend was a mix of sessions and hacking, with the focus more on the latter. We ported add-ons, made new ones, found bugs, and had discussions on best practices and ways to improve the user experience. Here is a mini-report of what went down, from an add-ons perspective.<\/p>\n

Target<\/h2>\n

It might be obvious to say this, but Fennec add-ons are much different beasts than their desktop counterparts. All the goodness of the Mozilla Platform is there and available to use, but the UI is completely different. Less hooks are available simply because there is less space, but the design and UI flow provide different challenges. Sure, there are toolstrips, aka vertical bars to stick icons on to, but what would happen if every extension did that. Pretty soon yours would be lost in the mix.<\/p>\n

Madhava Enros<\/a> did a good job of explain the design behind the Fennec UI. Dialogs and context menus are just 2 things among others that are out in Fennec, and their usage is strongly discouraged. With regard to dialogs, one concern I was hearing from devs is how to show preferences. Recent builds of Fennec (get desktop builds here<\/a>, or ask on irc.mozilla.org#mobile) have already taken steps to address this.<\/p>\n

\"Fennec<\/a><\/p>\n

Fennec Add-ons Manager<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So as you can see, when Options is selected, the UI appears inline and not in a dialog. While there are still bugs, it is clever, but is it scalable for larger pref sets? Or should extension authors scale down?<\/p>\n

Stepping Back<\/h2>\n

I started off my talk about porting existing extensions [Slides: PDF<\/a> | PPT<\/a>] by challenging authors to really think whether they should do it. Ask yourself, does it make sense in this context? Does it fit into the browsing habits of users of smaller devices, which is different than desktop usage? For example, users on the go want more information suggested to them as opposed to go hunting for it which can be cumbersome. Now I don\u2019t want to discourage you from porting your add-on. We certainly need more. Keep in mind that it will be more work than just adding Fennec as a target application in install.rdf, and while doing it, get inspiration for new ideas. I think some of the best add-ons will be ones built from the ground up that take advantage of device capabilities such as GPS and voice.<\/p>\n

The document story needs to get better. Mark Finkle posted last week<\/a> about his documentation efforts so far, and thanks to Mark for that. It gives us a solid foundation to add more. I urge everyone working in this area to post your finding on the Mozilla wiki \/ Devmo \/ your blog \/ anywhere to make life easier for those who follow and help promote adoption. I\u2019ll be personally following up with all participants to make sure they do so.<\/p>\n

The Winners<\/h2>\n

Before the event, we offered a challenge<\/a> at short notice on Mozdev to developers to propose ports of their existing work or new add-ons for Fennec. 4 entrants got to go to Copenhagen. The winners were (in no particular order):<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Fabrice Desre<\/strong> – Develop a \u201clocal guide\u201d application leveraging the geolocation support in recent Fennec builds. The geoguide will show informations relevant for the user, like touristic information, photos, retaurants and hotel etc. using various data sources such as flickr and dbpedia. The focus here is not to rely on a cluttered map display, but to provide a clean UI : in the same spirit of the experiments going on for the \u201cnew tab\u201d in Firefox, but for a \u201cnew place\u201d.<\/li>\n
  2. Chris Neale<\/strong> – Port Link Widgets<\/a><\/strong> to Fennec.<\/li>\n
  3. Marien Zwart<\/strong> – Port RadialContext-mz<\/a><\/strong> to Fennec.<\/li>\n
  4. Benoit Bailleux<\/strong> – autoOpenID<\/strong> looks for OpenID<\/a> sign-in forms and (depending on its configuration) can log-in automaticaly (or propose to) with no more than one click.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Of the four, Fabrice completed GeoGuide<\/a><\/strong>, Chris is almost complete, and Marien and Benoit are still working on it.<\/p>\n

    \n


    \n\"briks_fennec1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    GeoGuide<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    GeoGuide<\/strong> determines your location using the Geolocation API, and with that data present you with a map view, weather, local events, images, and wikipedia articles.<\/p>\n

    And The Rest<\/h2>\n

    Some other good work came out the weekend.<\/p>\n