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5digits / dactyl

Pentadactyl and other related Gecko extensions
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Pentadactyl distribution #26

Open wshanks opened 9 years ago

wshanks commented 9 years ago

I would like to see Pentadactyl become easier to install, especially for new users (and current users once mandatory extension signing makes the nightly more difficult to install). With the current state of affairs, it seems unlikely that any new user would try Pentadactyl because of the following issues:

All of that together would lead a new user to assume the project had been abandoned if he/she did not know to look at the commit log on GitHub and see that updates were still being made. Pentadactyl still works well as long as you use the nightly version, but the nightly version is only recommended via the mailing list and in the reviews on addons.mozilla.org, as far as I can tell. Additionally, I'll point out one other future issue that could impact current users as well as new users due to the current reliance on the nightlies:

I recommend the following actions to address these issues:

  1. Release a new version of Pentadactyl on 5digits.org when a release version of Firefox breaks Pentadactyl (and have it signed by Mozilla once that becomes necessary).
  2. Keep the news section of 5digits.org up to date with these releases (or remove the news section).
  3. Upload the new version to addons.mozilla.org, at least as a beta release. Pentadactyl is kind of a monster to review for AMO (I am an AMO reviewer but Pentadactyl is so complex I'm not sure I'm qualified to review it properly), but if the updates are mainly just compatibility fixes a full release on AMO once or twice a year might not be too bad.

Is there anything that the Pentadactyl user community (including myself) could do to help with taking these steps (or similar ones) to make Pentadactyl easy to install? I want to point out that, earlier in the year when the automated nightly builds stopped working and there was no xpi file readily available for download that worked with the release version of Firefox, several users set up there own build servers to help distribute updated nightlies. Several other users also asked on the mailing list if there was anything else that they could do to help the project.

ffledgling commented 9 years ago

+1, I support most of the suggestions here.

My only reservation is about the manual uploads for signing, this seems like a labour intensive task. Any thing that's labour intensive is likely to get left out, or forgotten about. I wonder if there's an official (read: Mozilla recommended) way of releasing/uploading the extensions for signing.

Keeping 5digits.org up-to-date with the latest news is probably upto the developers or core contributors of the project (unless someone wants automated release notifications up there as well), but uploading a fresh nightly and a proper release build automatically should not be hard to do.

I'd be willing to help out with any of the above tasks, if the developers need a hand.

wshanks commented 9 years ago

Regarding extension signing, I described what I took away from the discussion on the Addon User Experience mailing list (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.addons.user-experience/slaKs943n4c -- see messages ~11-20 in particular) following the blog post introducing extension signing. In that thread, an API was requested and the response was that it would be considered but it would not necessarily be implemented in time for the rollout of mandatory extension signing. If we could at least keep a release version of Pentadactyl that works with the release version of Firefox on AMO, I think that would be sufficient. One of the Pentadactyl developers is part of the Mozilla add-ons team, so he knows more about this then I do any way. I just bring it up as a concern, since currently the nightly is the only way to use Pentadactyl with the current Firefox and that won't be possible once mandatory extension signing is in place (at least not without some change to the way things work right now).

My point about the news section is mainly that it is currently misleading. If the developers want to update it, that's fine. Otherwise, it should be taken down since I think it does more harm than good by promoting an old version of Pentadactyl and giving the impression that the last update was over two years ago.

Most of my suggested actions require admin access to 5digits.org or the AMO acount. I'm not sure what the rest of us can do about that (unless the devs want to add someone else to the team), but I thought I could at least organize a list of the issues I find concerning as a start. If Pentadactyl weren't already on AMO, I'd consider posting it myself and just uploading a new nightly build each time a Firefox update broke it....

wshanks commented 9 years ago

For the record: Firefox 38 has been released, replacing Firefox 31 as the ESR. This means that the latest release of Pentadactyl (1.1, also the version on addons.mozilla.org) is now no longer compatible with the ESR.

addisonamiri commented 9 years ago

Maybe if there was a simpler site it would be easier to maintain. For instance Oh My Zsh only has a homepage and almost every other link goes to their github or a wiki page on their github. This would also make it easier for the community to update the wiki as new events occur offloading some of the work from the devs.

tokiclover commented 9 years ago

Just a side not: ebuilds of dactyl for Gentoo are available in this overlay. Gentoo Linux/BSD (derivative) OS users can pretty much install a live version to keep track to the latest changes of the repository. There is also an option to get the official plugins.

I did not pay much attention to the signing because... users are still required to add manually the add-on from /usr/lib/firefox/browser/extensions to their profile. --It does at least simply syncing to the latest upstream changes without downloading the whole binary each time.

bjesus commented 8 years ago

I guess this issue applies to me, as I'd like to try Pentadactyl but I can't figure out how to get it installed on Firefox 43 Developer Edition. Is there even a way?

polyzen commented 8 years ago

xpinstall.signatures.required=False

Read more: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Addons/Extension_Signing#FAQ

On Sat, Oct 24, 2015 at 11:02 AM, bjesus notifications@github.com wrote:

I guess this issue applies to me, as I'd like to try Pentadactyl but I can't figure out how to even get it installed on Firefox 43 Developer Edition. Is there even a way?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/5digits/dactyl/issues/26#issuecomment-150824526.

bjesus commented 8 years ago

Thanks @polyzen ! Now I'm only getting "Not compatible with Firefox Developer Edition 43.0a2" :-(

I understand it's not the official stable release, but I assume many of Pentadactyl's users are developers who are using other editions other than the regular one.

polyzen commented 8 years ago

It's not letting you install? Afaik, you have two options: 1) Disable version checks 2) Manually edit[1] the install.rdf inside the .xpi(.zip). Afterwards, repack/zip the addon (change .zip to .xpi if needed), and install

Bonus option: If you're using a Linux distribution, someone may have already packaged this addon with this change[2]

[1] https://github.com/5digits/dactyl/commit/41d023ac4fef2e318405f490903e0ada8f417abd [2] https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/commit/?h=pentadactyl-git&id=68589f9c969529a2c432c2c1886b7f21616511ee

On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 2:07 PM, bjesus notifications@github.com wrote:

Thanks @polyzen https://github.com/polyzen ! Now I'm only getting "Not compatible with Firefox Developer Edition 43.0a2" :-(

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/5digits/dactyl/issues/26#issuecomment-150949309.

bjesus commented 8 years ago

Thanks, I've edited install.rdf and got it installed.

polyzen commented 8 years ago

:+1:

On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 2:30 PM, bjesus notifications@github.com wrote:

Thanks, I've edited install.rdf and got it installed.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/5digits/dactyl/issues/26#issuecomment-150951947.