272119 - about:extensions

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, enhancement)

Description

[jbaugher]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616
Build Identifier: 

Feature request -- "about:extensions"

The extensions manager window is useful, but it would be nice to have a listing
of installed extensions similar to "about:plugins". We could use the text result
of that window to open up websites for the various extensions in tabs, to email
a listing of all installed extensions to a friend, etc.


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Might be useful as an extension, but doesn't really add value to the majority of
users.  WONTFIX.

Comment 2

[Mike Kowalski]

v

Comment 3

[jbaugher]

I just found an extension that provides similar functionality:

InfoLister
http://mozilla.klimontovich.ru/infolister/

Comment 4

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Mike, can we reconsider this? With the wild success that extensions have become in the last few years, we're starting to have more of a need for something that lets people share their lists (with friends, QA, Support, IT, etc.)

There exist extensions for this, like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3746 but that's not something one wants to go install when one is trying to troubleshoot extension issues :-)

Comment 5

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

This came up for me today -- I have a friend working in an organization in
which a Mac user and a Windows user, using the same version of Firefox, are
seeing different results doing certain things.  They want to be able to easily
compare the extensions installed between the various users without having to
further jostle their configurations, so they can figure out what's going on.

Comment 6

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

There would need to be a defined use case where a new about: page would be helpful. If you are talking about plain troubleshooting then I believe something more involved like that suggested in bug 367596 is a better option. If you are talking about sharing lists of add-ons with your friends so they can use them then I also think there are better options, Rock Your Firefox for example on Facebook.

Comment 7

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

The "let's not do anything until we have the the most comprehensive solution" seems like a bad plan to me. 

Extensions are the the root of the overwhelming majority of Firefox problems I see people complaining about today.  Asking someone what extensions they have installed and getting a quick and accurate response is much less good than it could be. 

That's my use case. It'd be nice to be able to get this and get it into a dot release and not wait on the committee to figure out all of the other things one might want in a comprehensive solution. 

Worse is better!

Comment 8

[Thad Bogert]

I would also like to express my interest in having an about:extensions page integrated into FF.  As a support technician for a company that offers an a FF extension, I think it's onerous for my customers to have to type out all of the extensions listed in the "Add-ons" window.  Knowing what extensions are installed in a browser is critical for troubleshooting.

I would have to assume that the Netscape team put about:plugins there for this very reason.

Comment 10

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

I don't think "worse is better" is valid here.  If this is worth doing, let's just do it right in bug 367596 for 3.2.  This should be fairly trivial to do, IMO, so doing it half-assed is not better, and in fact will make it less likely that we'll get what the support folks really want.