325577 - AMO shows the extension for one platform at a time

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Public Pages, defect)

Description

[mgueury]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1

When uploading a platform dependant extension to Firefox, the extension 
is uploaded several time with the same GUID.
All works fine.

But the screen showing the extension info for the end-user is confusing. It shows only the platform used by the end-user. For ex: Windows the user uses Windows. But does not show the other versions for other platform like Linux and MacOsX. 

If you read the end-users comments for the extension given in the URL (HTML Validator) You will see that most comments from the users are about the fact that they do not find the extension for their platform because the way it works is not intuitive. And/or there are some platform detection bugs sometimes too that does not simplify the problem.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. go to the URL 
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&category=Developer%20Tools&numpg=10&id=249
2. You will see only your platform flag and download possibilty.
  -> let say using Windows
  -> no Linux or MacOsX port is shown

Actual Results:  
The screen does not show a link for the other platform versions.
It confuses the user a lot. That would sometimes only know if the extension is available on another platform. And not download it. Please read the user comment on the site to better understand the problem.

Expected Results:  
See icon maybe smaller icon for the other platform + a link. With a text like
"available also Linux (icon) and MacOsX (icon)"

The same is true in the extension lists.  For example the list of the developer tools show just the windows icon when using windows. 
It should show the lists of the other platform too and give a link to them.

Even if the detected platform icon could for ex bigger to help the end-user.

Thanks by advance.

Comment 1

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

I'm taking this bug, but at this point I think it's a non issue.  If there are no objections, I'll close it.

Comment 2

[mgueury]

Please read most of the comments in the extension. A lot of people are stuck with this and send me mails about it. It would like to avoid them. 

It would be nice to see something like : 

Available also on: Linux, MacOsX with small icons.

Comment 3

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

AMO BUGSPAM FOR COMPONENT MOVE AND DELETE (FILTER ME)

Comment 4

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

AMO BUGSPAM FOR QACONTACT FIX (FILTER ME)

Comment 5

[Cameron]

Bugspam makes us be-come druggies
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Get morgamic some more coffee
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Updating all the bugs which have "Update" or "UMO" in them.

Comment 6

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

There is an "Other Versions" link under the "Install Now for <platform>" link.  I'll mark the bug fixed, but let me know if there's something else that could make it more intuitive.

Comment 7

[Cameron]

(In reply to comment #6)
> There is an "Other Versions" link under the "Install Now for <platform>" link. 
> I'll mark the bug fixed, but let me know if there's something else that could
> make it more intuitive.
> 
The other versions link points at previous versions, not versions for other operating systems. This bug is about showing versions for other operating systems, if they are avaliable. 

So I'm reopening this. 

Options: 
Change severity to enhancement - if we think this is a valid request.
or
WONTFIX - if we don't think it's relevant to show links to versions for other operatign systems.

The issue of people getting linked to the wrong download ought to be in a seperate bug, and steps to reproduce would be much more likely to get it fixed. Also be aware that the way we detect OS has changed.
 
mgueury: have you had any comments from users about getting the wrong download since 2006-04-29 - http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvslog.cgi?file=mozilla/webtools/addons/public/tpl/addon.tpl&rev=HEAD&mark=1.20

Comment 8

[Russell Cloran]

This is indeed a useability bug ... let me explain my use case.

Today, I was trying to point someone to the IETab extension. I wasn't sure what URL I should give them as the only seemingly relevant text I saw on the page was:

--------------
 Works with:

    * Firefox Firefox: 1.5 – 3.0a5

IE Tab is not available for Linux.
--------------

Should I have sent the URL to the other person or not? As it turns out, I should've.

What happens if I wanted to download and send them the .xpi on a disk or similar? The option is not available to me.

This is a an example of where trying to reduce the number of user decisions to make computer usage easier has too many negative consequences.

Comment 9

[Fred Wenzel [:wenzel]]

The "see all versions" link, pointing to the all versions page (which does not do any user agent-based filtering anymore) is now available almost at the very top of the add-ons details page.