1386272 - Create a module to recommend webextensions addons from legacy extensions

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Data Platform and Tools :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

We need to create a TAAR module that recommends webextension addons if user has legacy addons.

[1] - https://github.com/mozilla/taar

Comment 1

[Mark Smith [:mcs]]

I helped create the following add-ons (the first uses XPCOM and the second uses WebExtensions):
 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pagesaver/
 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pagesaver-we/

The logical upgrade path is for users to switch to our WE addon, but because we did not want to "cut off" people who rely on some of the features of the old XPCOM add-on, we used a different extension ID for the new one.

Will there a be a way for add-on authors to link their own WE variant to their old XPCOM add-on so that Firefox can make an appropriate recommendation?

Comment 2

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

(In reply to Mark Smith (:mcs) from comment #1)
> I helped create the following add-ons (the first uses XPCOM and the second
> uses WebExtensions):
>  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pagesaver/
>  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pagesaver-we/
> 
> The logical upgrade path is for users to switch to our WE addon, but because
> we did not want to "cut off" people who rely on some of the features of the
> old XPCOM add-on, we used a different extension ID for the new one.

Hi Mark, thanks for commenting here!

This bug is about writing the code for the recommendation model, which is being studied in bug 1386629.
Regardless of the model or technique we will end up using, I can tell you that we will leverage the information that is already available on AMO (we're not part of the AMO team) [1].

> Will there a be a way for add-on authors to link their own WE variant to
> their old XPCOM add-on so that Firefox can make an appropriate
> recommendation?

That's a good question! Unfortunately I don't know how to answer that, it has to do more with the AMO team rather than us. Maybe this question is better answered by the addons-server team [2]?

[1] - http://addons-server.readthedocs.io/en/latest/topics/api/addons.html#search
[2] - https://github.com/mozilla/addons-server

Comment 3

[Mark Smith [:mcs]]

(In reply to Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter] from comment #2)
> (In reply to Mark Smith (:mcs) from comment #1)
> > Will there a be a way for add-on authors to link their own WE variant to
> > their old XPCOM add-on so that Firefox can make an appropriate
> > recommendation?
> 
> That's a good question! Unfortunately I don't know how to answer that, it
> has to do more with the AMO team rather than us. Maybe this question is
> better answered by the addons-server team [2]?
> 
> [1] -
> http://addons-server.readthedocs.io/en/latest/topics/api/addons.html#search
> [2] - https://github.com/mozilla/addons-server

In case someone else finds this bug and has the same question, the answer seems to be "only AMO editors will be able to affect the recommendations." There is a discourse thread where everyone can make suggestions though: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/favorite-webextensions/17087/3

Comment 4

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

This happened in https://github.com/mozilla/taar/pull/22

Comment 5

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Moved to new component, per bug 1425844.