Closed Bug 835063 Opened 11 years ago Closed 11 years ago

new categories for THUNDERBIRD / Mail-specific Extensions

Categories

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Administration, enhancement)

Product:
addons.mozilla.org Graveyard
Component:
Administration
Type:
enhancement
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: realRaven, Assigned: jorgev)

Details

The Categorization of Addons for THUNDERBIRD doesn't reflect on the current rich extension universe offered by addon authors. It also makes it hard for users to discover some great addons.

This was discussed on the last mozcamp Europe and also at length on the Tb-Planning mailing list, here are the results:

https://etherpad.mozilla.org/tb-amo-category-improvements

11 categories are mandatory:
* Contacts
* Message & News Reading
* Folders & Filters
* Message Composition
* Calendar & Date / Time
* Dictionaries & Language support
* Import / Export
* Privacy & Security
* Appearance & Customization
* Chat & IM
* Tags
* Miscellaneus

For more arguments for these categories, please refer the above etherpad article and the following threads:
Extension Categories Review, 14/08/2012 - tb-planning

I am posting an abridged version of the discussion to AMO-Editors Internal
Changing Importance to Enhancement; still I think this is really important as it wasn't fixed for such a long time.
Severity: major → enhancement
OS: Windows 7 → All
Hardware: x86_64 → All
Merging 'Message Reading' and 'News Reading' will need some sort of DB migration script running but the rest is fairly straightforward.

Once its been done developers will need emailing.
Here's a possible plan of action:

1) Create the new categories and delete the old ones, except Message Reading and News Reading. -> eviljeff
2) Message Tb add-on devs about the change -> jorge
3) Create and run the category migration script to merge Message Reading and News Reading -> ?
4) Delete Message Reading and News Reading -> eviljeff

If the migration script takes too long to create or just doesn't happen, we can just skip step 3 and rely on developer to update their categories.
Assignee: nobody → awilliamson
(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #3)
> Here's a possible plan of action:
> 
> 1) Create the new categories and delete the old ones, except Message Reading
> and News Reading. -> eviljeff
> 2) Message Tb add-on devs about the change -> jorge
> 3) Create and run the category migration script to merge Message Reading and
> News Reading -> ?
> 4) Delete Message Reading and News Reading -> eviljeff
> 
> If the migration script takes too long to create or just doesn't happen, we
> can just skip step 3 and rely on developer to update their categories.

Sounds good to me. Can you set Status to Assigned?
(In reply to Axel Grude [:realRaven] from comment #4)
> Sounds good to me. Can you set Status to Assigned?

It's generally unnecessary to do this, since having someone assigned is what matters. However, since I'm commenting anyway, I'll change the status.
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Wil, we're updating the Thunderbird extension categories and need to merge two old categories. Can you run the following (or something equivalent) on the stage DB so we can test there before doing the migration on prod?

UPDATE IGNORE
    addons_categories AS ac,
    categories AS c_dst,
    categories AS c_src,
    applications AS a
SET
    ac.category_id = c_dst.id
WHERE
    ac.category_id = c_src.id
    AND a.guid = '{3550f703-e582-4d05-9a08-453d09bdfdc6}'
    AND c_dst.slug = 'mail-reading'
    AND c_src.slug = 'news-reading'
    AND c_dst.addontype_id = 1
    AND c_src.addontype_id = 1
    AND c_dst.application_id = a.id
    AND c_src.application_id = a.id;

Items that are in both categories should be taken care of when we delete the news-reading category.
Wil, can you let us know when you're able to run Kris' short sql script on stage so we can check things worked out?
Flags: needinfo?(clouserw)
Can somebody also create the INSERT script for the new categories please? I do not have access to the database schemas so I wouldn't be able to do it myself. I would suggest we do not attempt to auto-categorize any existing addons (other than the 2 Kris mentioned) and have Amy Tsay or one of the AMO Admins mail out a notification to all support addresses that they can / should re-categorize their existing addons themselves. 

I am certain most people who develop their addons actively will jump at that chance [I am sure I will], and I think whoever cares about their addon should get the advantage of better discoverability (as opposed to us doing the work for them)

Also I would like to discourage listing an Addon in 2 categories, if possible. It would be good if the lists that Thunderbird users get to see are shorter and more specialized (hence the diversification). "Use 2 categories only if one alone is a bad fit". Ideally being listed in 2 should be an exception.
(In reply to Axel Grude [:realRaven] from comment #8)
> Can somebody also create the INSERT script for the new categories please? 

that is not necessary.  

> I do not have access to the database schemas so I wouldn't be able to do it
> myself. 

that's why its been assigned to me :)

> I would suggest we do not attempt to auto-categorize any existing
> addons (other than the 2 Kris mentioned) 

we aren't auto-categorising any addons...  see comment #3 for what we're doing.

> and have Amy Tsay or one of the AMO
> Admins mail out a notification to all support addresses that they can /
> should re-categorize their existing addons themselves. 

see comment #3 - that is planned.

> Also I would like to discourage listing an Addon in 2 categories, if
> possible. It would be good if the lists that Thunderbird users get to see
> are shorter and more specialized (hence the diversification). "Use 2
> categories only if one alone is a bad fit". Ideally being listed in 2 should
> be an exception.

That's a change to existing functionality that will require code changes - log a different bug please.
(In reply to Andrew Williamson [:eviljeff] from comment #9)
> (In reply to Axel Grude [:realRaven] from comment #8)
> see comment #3 - that is planned.
> 
hmm, I somehow managed to skip reading comment #3  8-O

> > Also I would like to discourage listing an Addon in 2 categories, if
> > possible. It would be good if the lists that Thunderbird users get to see
> > are shorter and more specialized (hence the diversification). "Use 2
> > categories only if one alone is a bad fit". Ideally being listed in 2 should
> > be an exception.
> 
> That's a change to existing functionality that will require code changes -
> log a different bug please.

Depends whether you want to hard-code it. Initially I just thought it could be mentioned on the notification mail that Jorge will send out. If you think it is worth while to enforce it, I can raise a bug for it.
The category migration is live on dev and seems to have gone as planned. Which means that we need to have the rest of the merge tested and ready to be duplicated on prod for Thursday afternoon.

Amy, how do you want to handle the featured add-ons for these categories?
Flags: needinfo?(clouserw)
Flags: needinfo?(atsay)
(In reply to Kris Maglione [:kmag] from comment #12)
> The category migration is live on dev and seems to have gone as planned.
> Which means that we need to have the rest of the merge tested and ready to
> be duplicated on prod for Thursday afternoon.

I've added the new categories as above.

The only renaming (apart from the message reading one as to not break the script) I'm not sure is appropriate - dictionaries are a separate type of addon so have their own mandatory category - merging with the language support (extension) isn't possible.

Otherwise, we just need to do the last rename and final deletion of the news category once the push has happened. And then Jorge to do the messaging.
(In reply to Andrew Williamson [:eviljeff] from comment #13)
> Otherwise, we just need to do the last rename and final deletion of the news
> category once the push has happened. 

In detail, once the push has happened:
1) delete the news category here: https://addons.mozilla.org/admin/models/addons/category/57/
2) rename the message category here: https://addons.mozilla.org/admin/models/addons/category/58/
Rename to "Message and News Reading". And the slug to "message-and-news-reading"
Although, I'm not sure if we want to rename the slug as renaming would break any links... although who links to a Thunderbird extension category??
3) party!
(possibly needed) addendum:
clear memcache here: https://addons.mozilla.org/admin/memcache
(In reply to Andrew Williamson [:eviljeff] from comment #14)
> (In reply to Andrew Williamson [:eviljeff] from comment #13)
> In detail, once the push has happened:
> 1) delete the news category here:
> https://addons.mozilla.org/admin/models/addons/category/57/
> 2) rename the message category here:
> https://addons.mozilla.org/admin/models/addons/category/58/
> Rename to "Message and News Reading". And the slug to
> "message-and-news-reading"

Alright, this is done.

-> me, to do the messaging.
Assignee: awilliamson → jorge
This is great! But now, new add-on category need to be localized. Does anyone know how this is done?
I see this is life now, so I recategorized mine about an hour ago, but Categories are still empty. How long does it usually take for Category changes to propagate to all mirrors?
'bout an hour.
(In reply to Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] from comment #20)
> 'bout an hour.

hmm, its been 4 or 5 hours, still no dice:

https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/extensions/folders-and-filters/
https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/extensions/tags/
https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/extensions/appearance/
https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/extensions/composition/

do the extensions need to be re-reviewed in order to change categories?
We already resolved this over IRC, but for the sake of completeness: the category pages default to showing only featured add-on in that category. Clicking on the other sort options will show the full list. This should look better once all Tb developers are messaged and we get more add-ons (including some featured ones) in all categories.

Clearing Amy's flag, since I don't think we need to do anything about category-featured extensions.
Flags: needinfo?(atsay)
Filed bug 842397 to send the message to Tb devs.
We're done with this now. Now it's up to Tb add-on developers to recategorize their add-ons.
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 11 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Product: addons.mozilla.org → addons.mozilla.org Graveyard
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.