Firefox:Extension Manager UI

Currently the UI for Extension Manager is trim, but rather random/limited. A reinvestigation of it is warranted.

Problems: 
- action of "Update" button is not clearly defined
- people are not finding individual "Options" panels for Extensions
- no easy way to enable/disable an item
- no easy way to find documentation on an item
- no easy way to restart the app after an indication that this is necessary
- enabling/disabling/upgrading/installing etc all require app restarts (2.0)
- often used items are sometimes at the end of a scrolling extension list

Some solutions:

Many extensions have complex configuration options. We prefer authors include an optionsURL arc in their install.rdf specifying a chrome:// URI to display as their Options dialog, but many people don't seem to find Extension options due to their access from the Extensions window, rather than the Options window. One idea might be to fold the Extensions (and Themes) window back into the Options window:

+-----------------------------------------########---------+
|   @@@ +------------+@     @@@     @@@   ##@@@###  @@@    |
|   @@@ | Languages  |@     @@@     @@@   ##@@@###  @@@    |
| Genera| Plugins    |ent  Tabs Downloads #Addons#Advanced |
+-------| Themes     |--------------------########---------+
| Show: [ Extensions :^] [x] include disabled items        |
|                                                          |
| +--------------------------------+ For BugMeNot:         |
| |#@@#BugMeNot#5.4################| (( @ Options... ))    |
| |#@@#Bypass#compulsory#web#re...#|  ( @ Help & Docs... ) |
| | ------------------------------ |  ( @ Disable )        |
| | @@ GreaseMonkey 0.3.3          |  ( @ Uninstall )      |
| | @@ A User Script Manager fo... |  ( @ Find Update )    |
| | ------------------------------ |                       |
| | @@ Google Send to Phone 0.3    |  ( @ Home Page... )   |
| | @@ Send text messages to yo... |  ( @ About )          |
| | ------------------------------ |                       |
| | @@ Session Saver 0.2.1.028     | For all Extensions:   |
| | @@ Magically restores your ... |  ( @ Find Updates )   |
| |                                |                       |
| |                                |                       |
| | Get More Extensions ...        |                       |
| +--------------------------------+                       |
|                                                          |
+----------------------------------------------------------+

Comment by Nicole Tedesco

I really like the idea of providing a standard way of allowing extensions to register UI blocks into the appropriate Options category/categories. I also like the idea of also keeping the all-in-one-spot Options UI link from the extension itself. (In fact, if there is a standard way to add options in terms of blocks and categories, the all-in-one would get built automatically. See the Eclipse project for interesting examples.)

Comment by Nicole Tedesco

Please, please, please, let the Extensions Manager run without starting the browser! When dealing with a bad extension--perhaps one that crashes Firefox on every start--I would love to run just the Extension Manager to disable or uninstall unwanted features and then allow Firefox to start and run the new configuration.

Comment by Nicole Tedesco

Extensions are categorized on the web site, so why can't that categorization follow into the UI? Especially if a lot of extensions are loaded, and especially if I forgot which did what, a categorized list would be oh-so-helpful!

Comment by Robert Strong

Building on the select ui for selecting categories I think it would be appropriate to have additional categories for 'has updates', 'disabled', 'installing' etc. and allow opening the ui to a specific selection. If notification of updates is added back it would then be possible to open the ui and show all extensions and themes - or any other add-on that can in the future be updated - that have updates available. When the ui is opened for an install the only items shown would be the items being installed. This would solve the problem of where an item should be in the list as well as there being the original item and the new item being shown simultaneously during an install / upgrade.

There could also be an option of 'For All Addons: Update All' similar to the commands listed after 'For All Extensions: Find Updates'. With this type of an approach it should be possible to either provide user defined categories or for an extension to do so (I prefer having an extension provide this) where items can be added to a view no matter what their type is. Since only specific actions are available for each type of item it should be possible to display different types of items in the same view as well. This would allow 'For All Addons: Find Updates', etc.