430853 - PFS user experience

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit Graveyard :: Plugin Finder Service, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Vlad Alexander]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9pre) Gecko/2008042305 Minefield/3.0pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9pre) Gecko/2008042305 Minefield/3.0pre

I would like to provide some feedback on the PFS changes in FF3.

1. The last PFS screen informs the user that the plug-in has been installed as shown in this screen shot:
http://misc.xstandard.com/mozilla/pfs-restart.gif

Then after Firefox is restarted, the user is presented the "Add-ons" dialog box informing the user that the plug-in was installed as shown here:
http://misc.xstandard.com/mozilla/add-ons.gif

I don't think the "Add-ons" dialog box is necessary after a PFS installation or by manual installation of a XPI file (ie: entering the URL to a .xpi in the browser). In fact the "Add-ons" dialog box in this instance can only confuse the user because it only give the user only 3 options: disable, uninstall and find updates. These options are not relevant to the overall task the user is doing - installing a plug-in.


2. The "Add-on" dialog box needs a "Close" or "Cancel" button. Many non-technical users will not know that they need to press the X in the corner of the dialog box to close. Here is a screen shot:
http://misc.xstandard.com/mozilla/add-ons-close.gif


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

I totally agree that the PFS UI needs work, I was considering that in future versions the search and install process could actually be integrated into the add-ons manager UI, given that plugins are listed in there now.

Comment 2

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

The PFS UI was originally a quick thing done at the end of the development cycle, and hasn't changed at all since back then (Firefox 1.0 I believe).  So yeah, needs a makeover.

Comment 3

[Vlad Alexander]

Could a "Close" button be added to the "Add-ons" dialog box in time for FF3 release? As shown in this screen shot:
http://misc.xstandard.com/mozilla/add-ons-close.gif

Comment 4

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Could a "Close" button be added to the "Add-ons" dialog box in time for FF3
> release? As shown in this screen shot:
> http://misc.xstandard.com/mozilla/add-ons-close.gif

That suggestion would need to be filed as a separate issue, however I have never heard it suggested that users are incapable of closing the add-ons window and it is unfortunately too late to take such a change for Firefox 3.

Comment 5

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

My Firefox is missing the "Firefox needs to be restarted for the plugin to work"

Is anyone else seeing this?

Comment 6

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

My problem is that on our server, we don't have the "needsRestart" flag set in our RDF file.

The reason is because previously we didn't need restart, because our XPI had an install.js. I changed that XPI not realizing I needed to change the RDF file.

Since the only XPIs supported now are install.rdf XPIs that always require a restart, we should always display the "restart the browser" messages when you install an XPI based plugin regardless of the needs Restart flag.

Comment 7

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Mine.

Going to roll some changes in as soon as possible to improve the blocklisting user experience.

Comment 8

[Damon Sicore (:damons)]

This is really a 1.9.1 beta 1 blocker?

Comment 9

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

Connor: need a status update in this bug, since it's a beta blocker and has no patch.  Please and thank you!

Comment 10

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

This is obviously not making Firefox 3.1; unblocking now, renominating for Firefox 3.next.

Comment 11

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

yoink

Comment 12

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

Now that the dependency is fixed, can we close this out?

Comment 13

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Bug 836415 has now removed the Plugin Finder Service (PFS) from Firefox. As a result, I'm closing all the remaining PFS bugs.

If you're getting this bugmail for an ancient PFS bug, the basic summary of the world today is:

* NPAPI plugins are a dying technology
* PFS was already restricted to assisting with only the 4 most common plugins
* Sites commonly provide their own UI for install a required plugin
* Mozilla is generally focusing on  improving the web platform so that proprietary plugins are not required.

(Note that "plugins" are a completely separate from "browser extensions", such at those found on addons.mozilla.org. The latter are not going anywhere, and are not impacted by the removal of PFS.)