297367 - Document new update UI in Preferences

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox Graveyard :: Help Documentation, defect)

Description

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

...if it needs it, that is.  I'm just reading half-hour old Bonsai notes, so I
have no idea whether this needs work or not.

Comment 1

[Steffen Wilberg]

This is still being changed quite often.

Comment 2

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

I'm pretty confident we can have this documented in a couple days.  Working
around the update people's constant changes here will be the key problem;
hopefully they'll actually stop whacking at the UI in time for us to do so, but
I'm not holding my breath.

Comment 3

[Steffen Wilberg]

I doubt that the Advanced-Update-Advanced dialog is in its final state, see bug
299507.

Comment 4

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

Darin:

How close are we to having a stable update UI?  There's been far too much churn
to consider starting anything so far, but that's either changed or will be
changing extremely quickly.  As soon as we know what's there is what'll be in
1.1, we can start.

Also related is the question of how long until the UI flow of an update (tho not
necessarily an update that will make any changes; something non-standard but
triggerable would do the job) will actually fully work.  Clearly some sort of
update process needs to work for us to be able to document the UI during one.

Comment 5

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Jeff, it's time to start documenting what we have. We can make minor changes
going forward but the L10N freeze is nearly upon us. Can you get this in ASAP?

Comment 6

[Steffen Wilberg]

Note bug 302059 comment 0 on when the "warn me" dialog will be shown.

Comment 7

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Jeff, it's time to start documenting what we have. We can make minor changes
> going forward but the L10N freeze is nearly upon us. Can you get this in ASAP?

Sure, I'm on it.  I should have something at least ready for comments by the end
of the day, and depending on how reviews go I estimate it will be ready for
checkin by the 7th.

Comment 8

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Unless we are adding new help files, changes to the help documentation do not
affect the l10n freeze. Each l10n team translates as much or as little of the
help docs as they have time for, and internal wording changes don't matter in
terms of l10n.

Comment 9

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

(In reply to comment #7)
> I should have something at least ready for comments by the end of the day

Er, not happening for tonight.  It's looking like it'll be tomorrow, then, but I
don't know when -- depends on how long work goes.

Comment 10

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

Attachment: Initial stab at a patch - probably somewhat inaccurate and incomplete

I make some pretty huge assumptions about what happens in the Show Update
History button added in the last day or so.  The dialog shows nothing for me in
a 20050805 build updated to 20050806, so I don't know what info is shown here. 
My only source of info <http://wiki.mozilla.org/Software_Update:User_Interface>
(besides actual experimenting with functionality in nightly builds) seems to be
out-of-date.  Barring that, however, the rest seems at least passable, although
I'm not sure that "passable" is good enough.

I think it may be a good idea to add more info about exactly what happens after
you click "Check Now..." or enter an automatic update, but I'm not yet sure how
I want to integrate that information here.

Anyway, this is pretty rough...suggestions are definitely welcome.

Comment 11

[Steffen Wilberg]

Comment on attachment 191824 [details] [diff] [review]
Initial stab at a patch - probably somewhat inaccurate and incomplete

>+    <p><em>Automatically check for updates to:</em><br/>
>+      By default &brandShortName; automatically checks for updates to itself as
>+      well as to extensions and themes so you'll always know you have the most
>+      up-to-date version.  You can turn off this behavior by unchecking the
>+      appropriate checkbox here.  You can also manually check for updates to
>+      either &brandShortName; or your installed extensions and themes by
>+      clicking the appropriate <em>Check Now...</em> button.</p>
I don't like the repetition of "appropriate". How about "respective" or
"corresponding"?

>+    <p><em>When updates to &brandShortName; are found,</em></p>
>+
>+    <dl>
>+
Please remove at least the second newline here.
>+      <dt>Ask me what I want to do</dt>
>+      <dd>Updates are typically installed automatically by default.  Select this
This only applies to app updates, so /s/Updates/Updates to &brandShortName;/
>+        &pref.singular; to manually control how and when updates are
>+        installed.</dd>


>+        Extensions and themes will be updated
>+        prior to attempting to update &brandShortName;, and if any are
>+        incompatible with the available update to &brandShortName; they will be
>+        disabled.  If you wish to be told when themes or extensions will be
>+        disabled as part of a &brandShortName; update, select the <em>Warn me if
>+        this will disable extensions or themes</em> checkbox.</dd>
That's not quite correct, see bug 302059 comment 0 and the comments in the
patch for that bug.
Before performing an app update, Firefox checks if the installed extensions and
themes are still compatible with the update [it asks the update server whether
the maxVersion of the addon is bumped]. If any are incompatible, Firefox checks
if there's a newer, compatible version of the addon available for download. If
that is the case, Firefox will perform the app update after the next restart
and prompt you to install the new version of the addon afterwards.

If an addon is incompatible with the app update and there's no newer,
compatible version available, Firefox will by default ask you whether you want
to install the app update nevertheless and disable the addon. If you don't want
to asked in this case to ensure you always receive the latest Firefox security
improvements even if that means that an incompatible addon has to be disabled,
uncheck the Warn Me checkbox.

Now that's quite a bit of text, but that's how it works or at least how I think
it does. r- because of this part.

>+    <p><em>Show Update History</em><br/>
>+      &brandShortName; automatically records the updates you have installed.
>+      You can view information about these updates by clicking this button.  You
>+      can also remove previously-installed updates in this dialog.  Note that
>+      updates add functionality and greater security to &brandShortName;, so
>+      uninstalling updates is not recommended.</p>
Huh? I don't think you can remove updates in the history dialog:
http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/toolkit/locales/en-US/chrome/mozapps/up
date/history.dtd
So please remove the last two sentences.

Comment 12

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

Attachment: Updated patch

I changed the wording to better reflect reality as it has been described.  I
think there are possible improvements to make here, but I'm not sure what they
are.  The situation's complicated enough as it is, and I didn't want to start
dragging too many implementation details into thing here.

Comment 13

[Steffen Wilberg]

Comment on attachment 191926 [details] [diff] [review]
Updated patch

>+      <dt>Automatically download and install the update</dt>
>+      <dd>When this &pref.singular; is selected, &brandShortName; updates will
>+        be automatically downloaded and will be installed the next time
>+        &brandShortName; is restarted.  The <em>Warn me if this will disable
>+        extensions or themes</em> &pref.singular; determines whether you will be
>+        warned before installation of an update 
"when the update would result in an extension or theme having to be disabled
because it"
>+        isn't and can't yet be updated to be compatible
Although this sounds ok after reading it over and over again, I got stuck when
reading it the first time:
Isn't what? Updated? Or compatible?
How about "isn't compatbible and can't yet be updated to a newer version which
is compatible"? This would repeat the word "compatible" though.

>+        with the &brandShortName; update.  The warning will allow you to 
>+        postpone installation of the update, though at the expense of
>+        improvements included in it.</dd>

r=me with that.

Comment 14

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

I checked in the patch with the following sentence:

The <em>Warn me if this will disable extensions or themes</em> &pref.singular;
determines whether you will be warned before the installation of an update which
would require an incompatible extension or theme to be disabled because no
newer, compatible version exists.

I think this is better than anything else proposed here; it's a good bit clearer
and shorter than anything else.  If you have issues with it, open a new bug and
we'll deal there.

Anyway, we've got the info in place, so I'm marking this FIXED.  Future
improvements and other changes should be filed as new bugs.

Comment 15

[Steffen Wilberg]

Nice!