1556811 - Delegate WNP decision to update server on beta/release.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Messaging System, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Tom Prince [:tomprince]]

In Bug 1547830, the in-product code for not showing the WNP unless the major version was removed from m-r (67) and m-b (68) to support showing trailhead page on updating to the Trailhead dot-release and corresponding betas. Doing this delegated the decision to show an update on beta/release/devedition channels to the update server.

The update server is configured by default (via in-tree code here) to only display the whats-new-page on major version updates, but has flexibility to show updates for dot-releases and specific betas as well.

Given that we seem likely to want to be more pro-active about messaging in the future, I think it makes sense to delegate the decision on whether to display the whats-new-page to the update server on release channels.

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

This is marked P1 but has no assignee - is anyone intending to work on it soon?

Comment 2

[Tom Prince [:tomprince]]

I'm not planning on working on this. I suspect it may have gotten P1 from being cloned from the trailhead issue.

Comment 3

[Nick Thomas [:nthomas] (UTC+12)]

(In reply to Tom Prince [:tomprince] from comment #0)

In Bug 1547830, the in-product code for not showing the WNP unless the major version was removed from m-r (67) and m-b (68) to support showing trailhead page on updating to the Trailhead dot-release and corresponding betas.

To put this another way - https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D31745 didn't land in mozilla-central for 69, so the update server can't tell Firefox to show the WNP in future point releases (or mid-cycle betas). This bug is about making a decision to taking that change permanently, which means it falls to Firefox devs/product.

Comment 4

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Dropping this into triage per comment 2 / comment 3.

Comment 5

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

jimt, is there a desire to allow triggering the usual on-update whats new page on each beta and dot release? This bug is just for allowing for but by default without additional changes, there would only be a page shown on a major release. So if this bug was fixed, we wouldn't have needed bug 1547830 (landed in beta and release) but would still need bug 1551749 to show something for 67.0.1 and bug 1549889 to show something for 68.0b7.

Alternative to this bug would be some (messaging system router ?) mechanism to trigger showing a whats new page or perhaps a notification that would appear in the whats new panel that users could click to see a whats new page. So then this bug would be WONTFIXed instead.

Comment 6

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]: We'll want to be able to show whatsnew on 69 dot releases.

This is already fixed on 68 https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/6fc87a979fcb but we'll want a nightly-compatible version to avoid needing to make this change for every release

Comment 7

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

The plan is with "moments" pages in firefox 69, we can show a startup page at some subsequent launch of firefox instead of using a dot release as a mechanism to show user some messaging.

We might still want this bug for showing a page immediately on dot release update.

Comment 8

[Liz Henry (:lizzard Please n-i to RyanVM, jcristau, or pascal)]

Is there still anything that needs to happen here for 70? If not, then I'll untrack this bug.

Comment 9

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

I don't think we have an explicit need for showing a message for 70 dot release or 70 beta updates, so let's just close for now, and we can refile/reopen when we actually want it.