315285 - "View more information about this update" should link to the release notes for the specific release

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(AUS Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Ian Graham]

Seen in: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20051006 Firefox/1.4.1

When you select "view more information about this update" in Firefox 1.5 beta 2, the newly opened browser window displays content from:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/

This is a list of links to the release notes for every version of Firefox that's ever been released. 

But there is no information on Firefox 1.5 there.  

Overall, this is not nice.

As a user, I would expect a 'view more information' link to do just that - bring me information on the new version I might upgrade to, along with (potentially) a list of feature deltas w.r.t my current version....

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

(In reply to comment #0)
> But there is no information on Firefox 1.5 there.  

It's not even released yet.

Comment 2

[Ian Graham]

First -- If i'm upgrading from version 1.0.7 (or whatever), then my 'view info about update' page should not be showing a list of irrelevant, historical browser versions.  This is at best annoying, and at worse (for naive users) confusing.

Second -- yes, 1.5 is not out -- but the current page doesn't say that, or say anything useful to explain to the user why there is no 1.5 info available.  

At the very least this 'view info' page might say something like "Thank you for being willing to test a beta version of FIrefox. This is an update to a beta or release candidate, not to the 'final' 1.5 release.  The version update info page will be available when the official release is published".

These changes would mean updates and update inforamtion were much friendlier / useful to a user, and (imo) would make for a much more polished update facility. 

Comment 3

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Rafael, I think we'll want this link to point to the release notes for the specific release if that can be done server side.

Comment 4

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Is this "View more information about this update" the same thing as the "Details" link in Software Update, or is it different?

These comments have to do with the "Details" link sending people to http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/, which, imho, is also inappropriate.

The problem really seems to be that the "detailsURL" option is missing from AUS.
 - <update detailsURL=".." ..>
   is the URL where users can find more information about what's new in this
   update. This should be user friendly, concise, and not the full release
   notes page, although it could be a subset of a multi-page release notes
   information set.

The last sentence in that statement does not seem to fit what this is actually used for. I think it should be the full release notes page.

Take this URL for example: https://aus2.mozilla.org/update/1/Firefox/1.5/2005102519/WINNT_x86-msvc/en-US/nightly/update.xml

Notice there is no "detailsURL" option. If it is not provided, Software Update will fall back on the value for app.update.url.details (http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8/source/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser-region/region.properties#31), which is currently http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/.

Also, wouldn't it be wise just to add the version number to the end of the app.update.url.details URL and use that? Check http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.5 for an example. That url currently goes to the 1.5rc1 page due to some server-side magic. This could be done under the get detailsURL() function (http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8/source/toolkit/mozapps/update/src/nsUpdateService.js.in#743). This would allow all the release note stuff to be done server-side without any real client intervention.

Anyway, just my two cents.

Comment 5

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

detailsURL was meant to be a way for the server to define a URL to a page which contained information about the new things in the release. I had imagined the release notes being split into multiple pages, or at least anchored, so that the attribute could be set like so:

detailsURL="http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.5/whatsnew.html"

or

detailsURL="http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.5/#whatsnew"

I can imagine the server also substituting in lang/region:

detailsURL="http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.5/en-US/whatsnew.html"

etc, and http redirects set up to forward to the appropriate document. 

Comment 6

[Chase Phillips]

Where was detailsURL documented?  I couldn't find it on the wiki and it wasn't on my radar as something we needed to offer via AUS until now.

Comment 7

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Sorry, looks like the documentation in the Checking_For_Updates page became out of date. I deleted that and created/linked to:

http://wiki.mozilla.org/Software_Update:updates.xml_Format

which is an up-to-date description of the format. 

Comment 8

[Scott MacGregor]

I was able to verify that the client handled the detailsURL attribute on the update properly by doing the following:

1) Taking the 11/07 RC2 candiate build
2) Changing the channel to 'nightly'
3) Download the attached update.xml file (I'll add it to the bug report) and save it somewhere on your hard drive.
4) In about:config, adding a new pref:
app.update.url.override and setting the value of that url to the file url that corresponds to the update.xml file you just saved. If it's on your desktop, set the value of this pref to something like:

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/mscott/Desktop/update.xml

5) Now restart the app and check for updates
6) You shouldd see that a new nightly build update is now available. On the first screen of the update wizard, click on the "View more information about this update" link.

If this feature is working for you, you should get taken to http://www.espn.com which is the value of the detailsURL I added to my test update.xml file.

Comment 9

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: update.xml file to use for testing

Here's the update.xml file you can save on your machine to verify that the client can handle the detailsURL parameter.

Comment 10

[Tim Riley [:timr]]

I tried Scott's test on MacOS 10.4 and it worked fine.  The file path for MacOS if you drop the attachement on the desktop is:

file:///Users/timr/Desktop/update.xml

The client handled the detailsURL attribute for the update properly!

Comment 11

[u88484]

is this still blocking the 1.5 release and if so what is the status on this?

Comment 12

[Tim Martin]

Thisstill does not work properly in 1.5 RC3. The details link still points to the releases page. Given the severity of Sony's mess they created, I believe most users will want to know what the update is going to do to their computer. Fixing this will help them make an informed decision on what they are downloading and installing. Thanks.

Comment 13

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

As I was looking into some build config stuff, I came across bug 287477 dealing with the format of the release notes URL (of specific interest was bug 287477 comment 9).

From this, it probably needs to be decided how the release URL is going to be formatted on the server since comments in this bug disagree with comments in the other bug.

Comment 14

[Ian Graham]

(In reply to comment #13)
> As I was looking into some build config stuff, I came across bug 287477 dealing
> with the format of the release notes URL (of specific interest was bug 287477
> comment 9).

I see these as two different but related issues (and bugs).

1) Help --> Release Notes should provide information about the browser version I am using, which should change of course with versions. This is, I believe, the topic of bug 287477.  

2) 'View more information about this update' should explain what the update means: how is update going to affect / change what I currently have, fix critical bugs, etc, etc.  

Ideally 'view more information about this update' should not just point to release notes, but should explain the consequences of the update (i.e. what will happen, why it's good for me). This information clearly depends on both (a) the browser version I currently have, and (b) the version the update will take me to, since the description of changes will depend on both the start and end version.   

Clearly option (2) is not trivial. But a decent compromise is for 'view more inforamtion about this update' to show info about what's new in the version I would be updating to. So release notes would be satisfactory, imo. 

Comment 15

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

The first release candidate for Firefox 1.5.0.1 did not have a detailsURL set, asking for blocking.

Comment 16

[Steffen Wilberg]

--> AUS.

Comment 17

[Steffen Wilberg]

*** Bug 312585 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[Ian Graham]

I took the description of an enhanced  'view more information about this update' approach (comment 14) and created bug 324245 to track this potential enhancement. 

Comment 19

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

Reassigning to Chase to add the release-note link to the updates.xml

Comment 20

[Chase Phillips]

I submitted a patch for AUS2 which morgamic reviewed, then I made my changes live on the AUS2 site.  Support for detailsURL is now in AUS2 and a sample use of detailsURL can be seen if you install Firefox 1.5 win32, change your channel to betatest, restart Firefox, then check for updates.  In this case, the "view more info" link should take you to the CVS contributor form.  Marcia has verified this locally.

We'll gather a details link for the 1.5.0.1 release and include it in the update files.

Comment 21

[Mike Schroepfer]

Let's set the link immediately to:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/releases/1.5.0.1.html

Which should be consistent with previous releases.

Raf - confirm that this will be the final desination for the release notes.

Comment 22

[Rafael Ebron (:rebron)]

Correct.  That's the final url for the release notes for English.  cc:ing Axel for l10n versions.

Comment 23

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

If we want to take a systematic approach, it should probably be something like 
we're doing for Thunderbird, which is

releaseNotesURL=http://www.mozilla-world.org/nl/products/thunderbird/releases/%S
.html
It seems like we have no descent trademarks policy here, and this doesn't look
like 0.x material to me at all.

If we're talking about the app.update.url.details in region.properties,
not a whole lot of locales have localized this string, here's the list for 
Firefox.

l10n/ja-JP-mac/browser/chrome/browser-region/region.properties:app.update.url.details                   = http://www.mozilla-japan.org/products/firefox/releases/
l10n/ja/browser/chrome/browser-region/region.properties:app.update.url.details = http://www.mozilla-japan.org/products/firefox/releases/
l10n/ko/browser/chrome/browser-region/region.properties:app.update.url.details=http://www.mozilla.or.kr/products/firefox/releases/
l10n/nl/browser/chrome/browser-region/region.properties:app.update.url.details=http://www.mozilla-nl.org/projecten/firefox/releases/

Comment 24

[hjp]

Re comment #21 and #22:

The URL may be final, but the text hopefully isn't. It seems to be the release notes for 1.5.

I am not sure if 1.5.0.1 has been released yet. If it hasn't, I think it is even more important that the release notes are up to date: If you tell ordinary users that they should upgrade to 1.5.0.1 before it has been released, please make it very clear that this is a release candidate and not the final version.

Comment 25

[Tim Riley [:timr]]

1.5.0.1 is should b released on Tues barring any unforseen issues.  I believe there are plans to improve the relnotes before then.

Comment 26

[Chase Phillips]

Mass reassign of open bugs for [e-mail] to [e-mail].

Comment 27

[J. Paul Reed [:preed]]

This is fixed.

The l10n part fo this is bug 336338.