341818 - microsummary generator installation gives no indication that it succeeded

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox Graveyard :: Microsummaries, defect, P2)

Description

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

When a user clicks a link that attempts to install a microsummary generator, the browser opens a dialog that prompts the user for confirmation.  If the user clicks OK, then the browser tries to download and install the generator, but it gives no indication of whether it succeeded or failed.

Granted, the user can try to bookmark a page to which the generator applies, to see if the add bookmark dialog shows the microsummary, but what if she's wrong?  She might think the installation failed, because the microsummary is missing, when it's really just that the generator doesn't actually apply to that page.

Seems like we should let the user know whether we succeeded or failed to install the generator.  The easiest way for us would be to do it with a dialog, but dialogs suck.  Maybe we can use a yellow notification bar across the top of the content window?  Or is there some other way?

By way of comparison:

Theme installation pops up a similar confirmation dialog.  When the user clicks OK, the extension manager opens and displays both download progress and whether or not the installation was successful.

Extension installation pops up a more complex dialog, but when the user clicks OK, the extension manager opens and displays the same information as for themes.

Search engine plugin installation pops up a dialog like that for microsummaries and themes.  When the user clicks OK, the UI gives no indication that the search engine was successfully installed, but the user can click the search engine drop marker to open the list of search engines and see if the new engine is there.

Comment 1

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Myk, Pam's been working up a confirmation dialog for Search Engines in bug 336452 that you might want to borrow liberally from. The "[ ] Use right away" checkbox could launch a create bookmark dialog which seems like a sensible thing to assume users might want to do after installing a generator. 

Comment 2

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Myk, Pam's been working up a confirmation dialog for Search Engines in bug
> 336452 that you might want to borrow liberally from. The "[ ] Use right away"
> checkbox could launch a create bookmark dialog which seems like a sensible
> thing to assume users might want to do after installing a generator. 

Yeah, it's a good idea, although I'm not sure where to go from that checkbox, given that a generator can create microsummaries for a variety of pages.  Perhaps we could launch a create bookmark dialog for a sample page?

Comment 3

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

It'd be good to have some improvement here for beta2, although at this point it's unclear that the UI changes which would be required would make it into that release at this late stage.

Comment 4

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

On second thought, this probably shouldn't block beta2 given the sparse understanding about what a fix for this would look like.

Comment 5

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Given the lack of traction and the risk involved, this most likely can't make Firefox 2.  Retargeting to Firefox 3.

Comment 6

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

- BUGSPAM -
Wontfixing all Microsummaries bugs, since the feature has been removed from the core product and previous versions won't get further fixes for it.
If interested in supporting Microsummaries in your add-on, you're free to use our old microsummaries code and to search all previously open bugs by looking for [microsummaries-feature-removal] in the status whiteboard field.