1623575 - WebExtension permission KB page needed

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Help Documentation, task)

Description

[Geoff Lankow (:darktrojan) [PTO, back 2 Nov]]

I've recently landed some upgrades to the UI that asks the user's permission to install extensions. This is copied from Firefox and includes a "Learn more about permissions" link to SUMO. We'll need our own version of the page as we have our own permissions.

Here's the Firefox version of the page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-firefox-extensions (The link actually goes to a URL ending with "extension-permissions" and is redirected to here. So would ours, ideally.)

Here are all our permissions as displayed to the user: https://searchfox.org/comm-central/rev/e4f7cb14fda6e7c86bd5353f310105311ea78aa3/mail/locales/en-US/chrome/messenger/addons.properties#169

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Wayne, can you get the page created? Or who, Ryan?

Comment 2

[Ryan Lee Sipes]

I'll take it.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Stans, is this something you could take up?

Comment 4

[Stans]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #3)

Stans, is this something you could take up?

Yeah, sure, I can take it up.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Stans from comment #4)

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #3)

Stans, is this something you could take up?

Yeah, sure, I can take it up.

Were you able to create the KB?

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Or maybe John has doc somewhere already

Comment 7

[John Bieling]

I do not have documentation for the end user regarding permissions.

I do not know if the technical background of that link is known. This is what I have learned (thanks to @Standard8):

The URL is constructed by this template:
https://support.thunderbird.net/%LOCALE%/%APP%/%APPBUILDID%/extension-permissions

Sources:

• https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/4415bec7a49c50a338167d9c8934527b9cae59d0/browser/modules/ExtensionsUI.jsm#388-390
• https://searchfox.org/comm-central/search?q=app.support.baseURL&path=profile%2F*.js&case=false&regexp=false

On TB78 this resolves for me to:
https://support.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/20201211152611/extension-permissions

This has a 302 redirect to:
https://support.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird

And that has a 302 redirect to:
/en-US/products/thunderbird

My knowledge of SUMO is limitted. I assume we have to answer the following questions before creating a new page for us:

• Do we plan to localize this page, or just english?
• Do we plan to have a different page for each major release?
• Are we able to setup redirects in a catch all manner?

Firefox seems to use one page for all.

On FF78 the initial URL is
https://support.mozilla.org/1/firefox/78.6.0/WINNT/en-US/extension-permissions

which is redirected to
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-firefox-extensions?as=u&utm_source=inproduct

Comment 8

[John Bieling]

Can SUMO read GET parameters from the URL and hide/show content based on a parameter value? So we could hide permission information which do not apply for older versions without the need to duplicate entire pages?

Edit: If someone gives me an introduction and the required rights, I would volunteer to create the kb article.

Comment 9

[Stans]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #5)

(In reply to Stans from comment #4)

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #3)

Stans, is this something you could take up?

Yeah, sure, I can take it up.

Were you able to create the KB?

I had started on it a few weeks ago, but somehow lost the session (and draft) and haven't been able to pick it up since then due to other engagements. I expect to have lots of free time on my hands from the week starting on 10th, then I can get back to it.

Comment 10

[John Bieling]

I created a first version based on the Mozilla version waiting for approval:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-thunderbird-extensions/history

Comment 11

[John Bieling]

The page has been approved and is available.

I also created a pull request to set up the redirects:
https://github.com/thundernest/thundernest-ansible/pull/25

Comment 12

[John Bieling]

Andrei suggested to remove the build ID from the URL and replace it by something more useful, like the actual version. Similar to Firefox.

As shown in Comment 7, the URL is constructed using the app.support.baseURL pref (= "https://support.thunderbird.net/%LOCALE%/%APP%/%APPBUILDID%/") which is used in a lot of places in our code. I do not want to make such a high impact change just to get this one link working. How about introducing a new pref like app.kb.baseURL which can be used specifically for kb articles and which can be crafted to satisfy Andrei's suggestion?

Comment 13

[John Bieling]

Scratch that. The used pref is defined in toolkit code. So I will have to change and check all URLs which are constructed by app.support.baseURL.

Comment 14

[John Bieling]

Attachment: bug1623575_use_version_instead_of_buildId.patch

As suggested by Andrei, replace BUILDID by VERSION and also include the OS in the sumo URL.

I checked our source and found a couple of places where app.support.baseURL is used, but it looks like none of those places is actually showing up in the product. At least not a single URL of the pattern

https://support.thunderbird.net/%LOCALE%/thunderbird/%APPBUILDID%/

has a redirect entry on our Apache server and end up on the default redirect anyway:

https://github.com/thundernest/thundernest-ansible/blob/master/vars/apache.yml#L91-L114

So this change has no impact besides satisfying Andrei suggestion for the permission URL I want to setup for this bug.

Comment 15

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 9198947 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1623575_use_version_instead_of_buildId.patch

Review of attachment 9198947 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Looks good, r=mkmelin

Comment 16

[John Bieling]

Comment on attachment 9198947 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1623575_use_version_instead_of_buildId.patch

[Approval Request Comment]
Regression caused by (bug #):
User impact if declined:
Link to permission page will not work.

Testing completed (on c-c, etc.):
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky):
None.

Comment 17

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/caa56057bb1b
Use Version instead of BuildId in app.support.baseURL and also include OS. r=mkmelin

Comment 18

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 9198947 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1623575_use_version_instead_of_buildId.patch

[Triage Comment]
Approved for esr78

Comment 19

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Thunderbird 78.7.1:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr78/rev/4a93ed4c9bd9