Survey 3 – “What Add-ons Builder APIs are important to you?”

In this survey we asked current and potential Mozilla add-ons developers which APIs they felt were most important to them in their development efforts. The feedback the community gave was quite informative. Many of our assumptions about which APIs the community wanted were confirmed, but there were quite a few APIs which ranked higher than expected. The survey’s confidence level is 95% (+/- 8%) so these results should be fairly accurate – let’s dig in and take a look!

Panel – open a panel UI element – #3 most requested API

Page Mods – modify web page HTML, CSS, and JS – #1 most requested API

Localization – multi-language support

Places – bookmarks, history, etc

Audio – access to system audio capabilities

Gadget – ability to open an app in a chromeless window

Prism-like Abilities – create Prism-like apps

JS Libraries – jQuery, MooTools, Dojo, etc. – #2 most requested API

Awesome Bar – access to awesome bar data and events

Music – ability to interact with a user’s music data

Clipboard – access to the system clipboard – #4 most requested API

Video – deeper video integration

Third-party Data Services – Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, etc.

Inter-Add-on Communication – allowing add-ons to talk to each other

The Takeaway

It was no surprise that Page Mods was the most requested API of the pack, as it has been a highly debated and extensively discussed topic on the SDK Google Group. The surprises really occurred just below the top three APIs, where Clipboard, Localization, and Third-party Data Services (Twitter API, et al.) ranked highest, in that order. Over the next couple weeks, we will be asking for more detailed feedback on some of the less defined APIs you requested in the survey. After we have a handle on the specifics of what you want out of them, we can direct development efforts to accommodate.

– Daniel Buchner, on behalf of the Jetpack team