675192 - About:firefox should display build date or build number if on Beta channel

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Kelley Cook]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:6.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/6.0
Build ID: 20110721152715

Steps to reproduce:

I'm am using the beta channel (currently Firefox 6)

Firefox -> Help -> About Firefox


Actual results:

Firefox
6.0
Firefox is up to date
You are currently on beta update channel


Expected results:

Like Aurora and nightly, it should have told me some information on which beta build I am using

Example:

6.0 (2011-07-21)
Firefox is up to date
You are currently on beta update channel

or even better

6.0b3
Firefox is up to date
You are currently on beta update channel

I know the beta build number isn't being checked into the repository, so it may be midly tricky to get this information

But it should be possible with a slight change to the build scripts as the system is obviously picking up the mercurial changeset number which seems to be the only way to figure out the build number from the UI.

Firefox -> Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> about:config -> click on the Built from http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/7864cfd02969 link.

Obviously, if the app.update.channel preference says the user is on the release channel then this new about:firefox information wouldn't display.

Comment 1

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

You can also type about: into the address bar, that gives the detailed UA.

Comment 2

[Kelley Cook]

After bug 591537 was implemented about: no longer gives the real build date (it always says 20100101) without clicking build configuration (about:config) and then looking up the changeset on mercurial -- which isn't something most beta testers should be expected to do just to get their build number.

Comment 3

[:aceman]

What about about:buildconfig ?

Comment 5

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Kelley, I believe this is intentional, so that beta user's UA is identical to that used for final release - so any potential UA sniffing problems can be spotted earlier on.

Ultimately if the beta testers are testing with different UAs to what will actually ship, then it's harder to say with certainty that the beta feedback is representative of what will happen post-release.

Comment 6

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Oh sorry, you mean modifying the about window only and not touching the UA; read fail :/

Comment 7

[LegNeato]

(In reply to Kelley Cook from comment #0)
> 
> Example:
> 
> 6.0 (2011-07-21)
> Firefox is up to date
> You are currently on beta update channel

I was originally against this but now think it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I do generally fail to see why testers really need to know this...if they are looking at the about box they are either told a) they are up to date (so everyone knows what beta they are on) or b) it will download an update and get them to the latest beta. It makes more sense for Nightly and Aurora as they have daily builds. For Beta with irregular builds and minimal functional changes it seems a lot less important.

I have yet to see a bug where knowing the exact beta build date was critical and/or not having it caused confusion but perhaps I just am not CCed to those. FWIW I *have* seen it on Nightly and Aurora.

> 
> 6.0b3

Not going to happen, as you say this is an artifact of the build system and isn't reflected in the product anywhere. This is definitely not worth the effort.

Comment 10

[dotnetCarpenter]

(In reply to christian from comment #7)
> I have yet to see a bug where knowing the exact beta build date was critical
> and/or not having it caused confusion but perhaps I just am not CCed to
> those. FWIW I *have* seen it on Nightly and Aurora.
So as I've posted in this comment (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1013421#c3) is as accurate as it should be?

Comment 11

[:Gijs (he/him)]

I don't know when/where this was added, but beta now says "54.0b8" for me, so I think this is wfm.

Comment 12

[Carlos [nohamelin]]

Yep, it was bug 1145175.