955768 - AIO Needs Better Add-On Categories

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Instantbird Servers Graveyard :: addons.instantbird.org, defect)

Description

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

*** Original post on bio 447 at 2010-07-15 13:11:00 UTC ***

The current categories aren't very descriptive and most of them just describe the "technology" behind the addon:
Dictionaries & Language Packs
Emoticons
Message Styles
Plugins
Protocols
Theme

This leaves only the following for "regular" extensions:
Developers
Security
Usability

A lot of extensions don't easily fit into any of them. I'd propose adding some, perhaps:
Appearance
Contacts
Other or Miscellaneous

And maybe removing "Usability" (What does that really mean? And it seems to be be the "default" when people can't fit their extensions into other areas.)

Comment 1

[Quentin Raynaud]

*** Original post on bio 447 at 2010-07-21 14:54:35 UTC ***

We already discussed this issue a lot. it is very hard to find a good set of categories.

It should be discussed further before doing anything but I concur about the fact we have to improve this point, thus I confirm the bug.

Comment 2

[Benedikt Pfeifer]

*** Original post on bio 447 at 2010-08-06 09:22:54 UTC ***

I concur that the categories need some tweaking.
Usability was what we came up with when thinking about how to say "Extensions that make Instantbird more user friendly". I think it fits well for extensions like "Join Chat" (no UI change), "Disconnect All", "Minimize to Tray", "Buddy Status".

Is the idea of your suggestion "Contacts" to have a category for the buddy list? Could be the same for the conversation window as well in which a good part of the current Usability would belong to; For example "Vertical Tabs", "Reply to nick", "Highlight", "Show nick", ...

I don't see what exactly would fit into category "Appearance". Themes and messagestyles are a big part of the appearance and they already have their category.

Comment 3

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

*** Original post on bio 447 at 2010-08-06 10:56:55 UTC ***

Contacts would apply to the buddy list as well as anything else dealing with contacts, (i.e. if they're managed in a special way or importing/exporting or something I can't come up with right now).

I agree might be good to have a "Conversations" type one also.

Appearance is kind of a vague category, but for EXTENSIONS that change the appearance, i.e. Vertical Tabs does this, the content extractor that you're working on does this, Highlight, Show Nick, etc. But these also could probably fit into the "Conversations" and "Contacts" categories, although each extensions can be in 3.

Usability right now is the catchall and I think it'd be good to split some things out of there. Although the suggestions I gave aren't necessarily the best.

Comment 4

[Benedikt Pfeifer]

*** Original post on bio 447 at 2010-08-06 11:54:29 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #3)
> [...] Appearance is kind of a vague category, but for EXTENSIONS that change the
> appearance, i.e. Vertical Tabs does this, the content extractor that you're
> working on does this, Highlight, Show Nick, etc. But these also could probably
> fit into the "Conversations" and "Contacts" categories, although each
> extensions can be in 3. [...]

Ah, ok. I'm still not sure if I like it. The word sounds like "fancy but not useful" to me.

Comment 5

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

*** Original post on bio 447 at 2010-08-06 12:19:59 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #4)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > [...] Appearance is kind of a vague category, but for EXTENSIONS that change the
> > appearance, i.e. Vertical Tabs does this, the content extractor that you're
> > working on does this, Highlight, Show Nick, etc. But these also could probably
> > fit into the "Conversations" and "Contacts" categories, although each
> > extensions can be in 3. [...]
> 
> Ah, ok. I'm still not sure if I like it. The word sounds like "fancy but not
> useful" to me.

A lot of people like "fancy but not useful"

For sample, Firefox's "Appearance" category: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/appearance/

I think splitting it up by what its purpose is might be better though. I like your idea of "Contacts", "Conversations" (maybe "Accounts", although that's getting close to "Protocols"), not sure what other "big" pieces there are to Instantbird.

Comment 6

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

There's never been traction on this, let's close this as WONTFIX. We can reopen if someone wants to own the addons website.