689845 - [Fx 8] Add release notes link back to Download buttons on Mozilla.org/Firefox site

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[Laura Mesa [:lmesa] [:lvmesa]]

W removed the release notes several months ago for the Mozilla.com redesign, I think in attempt to streamline the button. 

I would like to ask that this be added back in to the main download buttons on pages (not the narrow skinny ones that we use as supporting buttons) or below it--I'm seeing lots of complaints that we don't include this easily from the site and I think it goes against our principles to be transparent about the product. 

I'm not sure if we need the buttons to be redesigned--Slater, can you comment?

I'd like to re-add these for the Firefox 8 release. 

This does not apply to our development builds--I'm trying to come up with a better solution for those.

Comment 2

[Fred Wenzel [:wenzel]]

If there is a concern about bloat for the button itself, at lest there should be a reasonable way to *get* to the release notes. I don't think there currently is a way to get there (short of using google).

Comment 3

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

I'm all for keeping the download button as simple as possible. That said, now that we have a rapid-release cycle, that "What's New" portion of the release notes is a bit more valuable.

For a bit of context and history, Bug 582721 has a good discussion of what the download button contained at the time (Firefox 4). We were adding the "Privacy Policy" link. This is also when we removed the Release Notes link and the download file size.

The current large version of the download button on mozilla.org/firefox/new/ includes the following elements:

1. Firefox icon
2. download-arrow
3. title "Firefox"
4. subtitle "Free Download"
5. Version #
6. Platform ("Windows", "Mac OS X", or "Linux i686")
7. Locale ("English (US)")

Immediately following the button, we have two links:

1. All Systems & Languages (all.html)
2. Privacy Policy (legal/privacy/firefox.html)

We can technically fit the Release Notes link back under the large /firefox/new/ button, in English at least, but it is getting to be a lot of links.

Might be a good time to try some more housekeeping. Can the link titles ("All Systems & Languages", "Privacy Policy", and "Release Notes") links be shortened? Keep in mind that changing these strings has a significant l10n impact.

I wonder if the "Release Notes" terminology might be better served with "What’s New", "Changes", or "Recent Changes" - these seem to be the critical parts of the release notes (to me, at least).

The shortest I can imagine would be something like:
"Systems & Languages | What’s New | Privacy"

The idea of merging the "All Systems & Languages" link with the "Release Notes" link into a general "More Info" link was also float back with Firefox 4. This would be nice and simple for the download button, but would require us to rethink how we structure the all.html page and release notes pages.

Comment 4

[Laura Mesa [:lmesa] [:lvmesa]]

(In reply to Steven Garrity from comment #3)
> I'm all for keeping the download button as simple as possible. That said,
> now that we have a rapid-release cycle, that "What's New" portion of the
> release notes is a bit more valuable.
> 
> For a bit of context and history, Bug 582721 has a good discussion of what
> the download button contained at the time (Firefox 4). We were adding the
> "Privacy Policy" link. This is also when we removed the Release Notes link
> and the download file size.
> 
> The current large version of the download button on mozilla.org/firefox/new/
> includes the following elements:
> 
> 1. Firefox icon
> 2. download-arrow
> 3. title "Firefox"
> 4. subtitle "Free Download"
> 5. Version #
> 6. Platform ("Windows", "Mac OS X", or "Linux i686")
> 7. Locale ("English (US)")
> 
> Immediately following the button, we have two links:
> 
> 1. All Systems & Languages (all.html)
> 2. Privacy Policy (legal/privacy/firefox.html)
> 
> We can technically fit the Release Notes link back under the large
> /firefox/new/ button, in English at least, but it is getting to be a lot of
> links.
> 
> Might be a good time to try some more housekeeping. Can the link titles
> ("All Systems & Languages", "Privacy Policy", and "Release Notes") links be
> shortened? Keep in mind that changing these strings has a significant l10n
> impact.

I like this idea.  I was wanting to work on making the release note's more friendly anyway (something to do during Q4 I hope). Having said that, is it too long if we just do Systems & Languages | Release Notes | Privacy ?

I want to fix the release notes page we have before we start calling it "what's new" (plus there's discussion around renaming our current 'Whats New" page, so I want to try and limit confusion until we need to.

> 
> I wonder if the "Release Notes" terminology might be better served with
> "What’s New", "Changes", or "Recent Changes" - these seem to be the critical
> parts of the release notes (to me, at least).
> 
> The shortest I can imagine would be something like:
> "Systems & Languages | What’s New | Privacy"
> 
> The idea of merging the "All Systems & Languages" link with the "Release
> Notes" link into a general "More Info" link was also float back with Firefox
> 4. This would be nice and simple for the download button, but would require
> us to rethink how we structure the all.html page and release notes pages.

Yeah, this definitely could be a long term solution proposal?

Comment 5

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc (PTO until April 26)]

From an l10n perspective, adding back the release notes link is technically not an issue, just a couple of variables to update. Changing the string to a different wording of course means having this string translated for all locales but we can use the previous translation as a fallback for locales until it's progressively translated.

Comment 6

[John Slater]

If l10n isn't a big issue, I like the suggested edits Laura made in comment #4. My main issue here is keeping the space around the download button relatively clean, but editing the extra text helps.

Comment 7

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

"Systems & Languages | Release Notes | Privacy" fits relatively well.

Are we ok (l10n and legal) to make these two changes?

"All Systems & Languages" -> "Systems & Languages"

"Privacy Policy" -> "Privacy"

Comment 8

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc (PTO until April 26)]

From an l10n perspective, no problem in adding two new strings, what is to decide is if we display the previous version of the text for those strings until the translation is done for the locale or if we only display links for the strings we have.

(Note that the length of these strings for locales is not related to the length of the strings in English, expect it to be longer)

Comment 9

[Laura Mesa [:lmesa] [:lvmesa]]

(In reply to Steven Garrity from comment #7)
> "Systems & Languages | Release Notes | Privacy" fits relatively well.
> 
> Are we ok (l10n and legal) to make these two changes?

Stacy, Liz--any reason why we can't move forward?

Comment 10

[Liz Compton [:liz]]

I'd prefer "Privacy Policy," I think that's clearer. I'm going to add Alex & Jishnu (who is back next week), though, and ask that Stacy, Alex, and Jishnu discuss it and give you a definitive answer. Is next week soon enough for an answer?

Comment 11

[Ken Saunders]

I'm not sure what the value is to adding a link to release notes back under the Firefox download button considering this/the additional amount of time and diverted resources to do so, and that it's information that interests only, or primarily those already using Firefox whereas potential users are more interested in Features, etc.

I'm sure you would find many that agree that simply providing a visible link to release notes somewhere would be sufficient. 
Perhaps in the footer under Desktop where there are two lines available to add it.

It's a fix and it would wrap this up a lot faster so that other, more important things could be focused on.
I'm not saying this isn't important, I filed a bug on it too, but it just seems like there's an easy solution.

Comment 13

[Fred Wenzel [:wenzel]]

(In reply to Ken Saunders from comment #11)
> I'm sure you would find many that agree that simply providing a visible link
> to release notes somewhere would be sufficient. 

Agreed: Release notes are a geek tool; for consumers we already have "features" pages etc. The current problem is that they can't be found at all, the release notes are an orphaned page as far as I can tell.

Comment 14

[Laura Mesa [:lmesa] [:lvmesa]]

Thanks Ken, Fred--

I think we should a dd a link to http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/releases in the footer for sure (but maybe we rename the page to /releasenotes?

I don't think we lose anything by adding a link to the most recent release notes under the button. The more visible, the better.

Comment 15

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

lmesa or lforrest, can you help wrap up the discussion on this bug. We'll implement the conclusion. Thanks.

Comment 16

[Laura Mesa [:lmesa] [:lvmesa]]

I would like to move ahead with what we said in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=689845#c9.  Liz, you mentioned legal could look at this is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=689845#c10--can we move ahead?

Comment 17

[Jishnu Menon :jishnu]

Hi Laura,

We're ok with Privacy Policy link renamed to "Privacy".

Thanks
Jishnu

Comment 18

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc (PTO until April 26)]

links back for l10n in r97395.
http://www-dev.allizom.org/fr/firefox/fx/

Comment 19

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

Done in trunk for /firefox/new/. Patch for the rest of the buttons (in product-details lib) coming up.

Comment 20

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

Attachment: Add release notes link back to product-details ancilliary links

James, here's the patch to add the release notes link back to the download button links.

Comment 21

[James Long (:jlongster)]

pushed patch to product-details in r97401

Comment 22

[James Long (:jlongster)]

Comment on attachment 572481 [details] [diff] [review]
Add release notes link back to product-details ancilliary links

Review of attachment 572481 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Looks good. I'll have to keep up with the download button changes in bedrock, but it's not that hard at this point.

Comment 23

[raymond [:retornam] (inactive)]

qa-verified-trunk http://www-dev.allizom.org/en-US/firefox/features/

Comment 24

[James Long (:jlongster)]

pushed to production r97483

Comment 25

[raymond [:retornam] (inactive)]

verified fixed http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/features/