Yes yes y’all! We’re about done with a brand spanking new add-ons site, and we wanted to give you a sneak peek.
Here’s what we’re doing and why…
We want to make it super easy for people to find and install add-ons they find interesting. To that end, we’ve simplified the UI and added search, tags, and categories.
We also want to improve the overall exerience for add-on developers. We’re extracting and displaying more of your add-on’s data - your icon, your homepage url, friends who’ve contributed, and more. We’ve also improved our upload validation to better adhere to Mozilla’s spec. This should make it dead simple for Mozilla devs to port their add-ons to Songbird. We’ve added feeds for add-on comments and you can now include HTML in the “Description” that appears front and center on your add-on’s detail page. Anything goes (within reason), so have at it!
When we began this project it quickly became obvious that we needed to rewrite the site from scratch. This took longer than we would’ve liked, but it was totally necessary. There was just too much stuff that needed to happen under the hood. The good news is we’re now in a great position to be able to add new features more quickly and more easily. Hold us to it!
We’re also trying out a new visual style. Please let us know what you think. We’re excited to hear your thoughts on the new look.
Thanks!
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[...] i’m super psyched about. our current add-ons site has…. some issues, and our new one looks fantabulous. plus i’m hoping once we get that out, our nest team can turn some eyes over to figuring out [...]
16 Comments
SubscribeThe header looks very nice and slick.. The icons don’t match it, though - their “teen” style is completely different from the more “corporate” vision..
That’s my 2e-2 USD, anyway..
Looks HAWT! Good job guys!
It would be nice to see which versions of Songbird the plugin works with.
Awesome work. A thought to peek at is to have add-on publishers choose which picture they would like to have be previewed. It would prove to be helpful when interfaces change and wanting to update the picture.
Looks great but as Tom Miller said, it would be useful to see what versions the add-on works for. Also could be useful to show the version number of the add-ons on the search page. Will ‘Version History’ on the third image show release notes?
Awesome
I’m already on it ! (easy to find)
What about RSS feeds for recently modified add-ons?
Smoking! Love the use of the category icons throughout.
Oh, and I have to agree w/ LouCypher: per-extension RSS feeds would be a killer feature.
Pssst… the Web Browser header in the first screenshot has the wrong descriptive text!
Looks very nice. A pity you guys didn’t do the redesign for Mozilla addons site.
I would recommend you to make the search function more prominent, given all the content on the front page.
Found it as well. Even more pleased with it now i have had a play
Finally a searsh engine.
Finally
right on nestbuilders!
congrats on the great work.
Thanks for the feedback everybody. We really appreciate it!
The current plan is to launch next week. There are definitely some things we want to do that we just aren’t going to have time to do before then, but your feedback really helps us gauge what we should work on next. Here are some of the things we’ll be working on as soon as we’re able.
* You should be able to view a list of recommended add-ons.
* You should be able to subscribe to a feed of new and updated add-ons.
* Add-on authors should be able to select an image as their primary image.
* You should be able to view large versions of an add-on’s images inline (via a lightbox effect or similar).
* Add-on authors should be able to add/edit release notes.
* You should be able to view an add-on’s release notes.
@ NeoAlchemy & LouCypher… Hopefully the above list makes you happy
@ Tom Miller & cellarmation… We’re actually trying to downplay Songbird version #, and put the emphasis on whether an add-on is installable or not. We’ll pre-filter based on your Songbird version and default to showing you just what’s installable for you. We’ll provide an easy way to view all add-ons, though, and make the installable vs. everything toggle sticky as you click around. Because we know its important to developers, we’re also going to make all versions of an add-on easy to download from the version history page regardless of whether they’re compatible with your Songbird. We’re digging how simple that makes it for most people, but still provides the extra utility for the devs that need it.
Keep the feedback coming!
Thanks!
Beautiful