AMO:Authors

Update: Home Page » Developers Section of the Website

The Mozilla Update Website allows addon authors to upload their own items.

Contributing your Addon

For a guide on developing your own addons, please visit the MozillaZine Knowledge Base.

Once you have developed your addon, create a Mozilla Update account.

Upload your extension or theme.

Your addon must contain an install.rdf.

All themes must include a suitable preview image - this is mandatory.

Please, only list application versions and OSes that you have tested with. Do not rely on the UMO reviewers to find bugs in your addon - it is expected that you have already done extensive testing involving a number of testers before submitting your addon to UMO. Please remember that every user who downloads a Mozilla Application has a link to UMO in their extension/theme window and therefore UMO is only suitable for addons which are finished, and polished!

To provide a good user experience, we only allow you to declare compatibility with versions that can be tested. If you include a maxVersion of 5.0, your submission will be rejected.

How to Get Your Addon Reviewed Faster

The popularity of Firefox and addons has lead to a significant increase in the number of addons submitted to UMO for review, and with only a small number of active reviewers, the number of addons in the queue on average is increasing. There are a few ways in which you can speed up this process and make it easier for us, and therefore, faster for you.

• Comply with these policies. They're only drafts at the moment, but we still enforce them. The most common one people fail on is that your addon must not specify an UpdateUrl. UMO will automatically offer updates to your addon to users when you submit new versions of your addon and we have reviewed them.
• Do not use the UMO reviewers as beta testers and bug finders. This is not the purpose of reviewers. Please test the addon extensively before submitting.
• If possible, have a public system on your website for reporting and managing bugs in your addon. This is an invaluable resource for us when we are reviewing your addon as it gives us information on any problems in your addon.
• If possible, conduct a beta release cycle from your website every time you want to release a new version of your addon. Allow your current users to be involved, but be sure to warn them that the addon is in beta ;) Conducting a beta cycle will ensure your addon has less bugs and is of a higher quality when you release it and/or release new versions.
• If possible, have a public forum on your website for users to critique, comment on and discuss your addon. If this is not possible or impractical, create a topic on the Mozillazine Extension forum about your addon - this will group together any comments that users have about your addon and allow reviewers to gather information about your addon more speedily.
• If you are updating your addon, have a changelog on your website. This will inform us what parts of the addon have changed and which parts we especially need to test and give extra scrutiny to.
• If your addon requires you to log in (eg. for website integration extensions,) it would be great if you could supply a test account for us. Currently there is no system for making a test account available to reviewers. See bug 316930
• If any software is required for your addon, please state this in your submission.
• This is mentioned above, but it's important so I'll mention it again. Only declare compatibility with application versions and operating systems that you have tested with. If version 2.3 of your addon worked with Firefox 1.0.* and you're planning on releasing 2.4 which is compatible with Firefox 1.5.0.*, you should ONLY declare compatibility with Firefox 1.5.0.*, unless you have tested your addon with 1.0.*, in which case you should declare compatibility with both. Don't simply assume that because your addon works in Firefox that it will work in Flock, or that because it works in Thunderbird that it'll work in Mozilla - you need to test this extensively.

Welcome Page

Also known as the Developers Control Panel (or Developers CP), when you enter /developers/ you are prompted to login or create an account.

Main Page

Once you've logged in, you're presented with a brief overview of the addons you've submitted and links to submit more.

User Profile

Each user is able to edit their own profile. Here you specify your name, email, and personal website. By default, your email address is not listed on the end-user website. Administrators are also presented with the ability to manage the permissions level of the user.

A user can be designated as an Administrator, Editor (aka Moderator) or User (aka Developer).

User Manager

An administrator has a list of all users and their permissions. From this screen mass updates are available. There is also a link for creating a new user.

Listings

Available to administrators only, a list of every item can be shown. On the sidebar are links to the Extensions List and Themes List. This shows the name, description, and date last updated. The name is a link to edit each item.

Reviewing procedure

Each submission must be approved by an Editor or Administrator before it is listed on the site. Whether approved or denied, an email is sent to the authors. A comment is required if denied. If approved, the addon is moved to a directory so that it can be replicated across the mozilla.org mirrors.

The approval queue contains all of the submitted add-ons in a chronologic order, but the add-ons are not always handled in a FIFO/LIFO way. The reviewer just picks an add-on and start reviewing. Most add-ons are reviewed following the main procedure for reviewing add-ons:

1. Install the add-on (and restart the application if needed)
2. Check if the application is still functioning as it should
3. Check if the add-on does what it should do. That's why a decent description and version notes are important for the reviewer too.
4. Check if the add-on didn't corrupt or break other functionality (of the application or other add-ons)
5. Try to uninstall the add-on (and restart the application if needed)
6. Check if the application is still functioning as it should

Then the add-on is approved or denied. If the add-on is denied, the reviewer will include comments on why it was denied. Keep in mind that the reviewer try to thoroughly test your add-on, but, like any other, they don't have an unlimited amount of time.

If you have questions about the procedure, you could join #addons on irc.mozilla.org. Information about how to get your add-on reviewed faster can be found at: #How_to_Get_Your_Addon_Reviewed_Faster.

Creating an Account

To create an account, you must supply a username and password. A confirmation email is sent to your account. A row is inserted into the userprofile table.

Uploading an Item

You begin the process by browsing your hard drive and selecting the addon. This file is then uploaded to a temp directory. It will remain there until it is either approved or denied.

If uploading a theme, the theme must have a valid structure and must pass initial sanity-check validation at the time it is uploaded. (Currently, the site provides no feedback of failed validation, and the user is presented with a mostly-empty page in that case.)

(details to be specified once there's a working site somewhere)

Managing an Existing Addon

Managing an addon is split between several pages. It begins with the item-overview. This shows a summary of all versions. From here you can go to a page to edit the common information (name, description, authors), a page to edit a version (minVer, maxVer, OS supported, release notes), a page to review feedback, and a page to add preview images.

Roles

Editor

• Responsible for testing items in the approval queue
• Responsible for monitoring the comments
• Responsible for adding addon reviews

Administrator

• Responsible for testing items in the approval queue
• Responsible for monitoring the comments
• Responsible for managing the list of applications
• Responsible for managing the list of categories
• Responsible for adding addon reviews

Uploading an Addon

• Click "Add New Extension..." or "Add New Theme..."
• Upload the XPI/Jar file

At this point, the process varies slightly depending on whether you are an administrator or developer.

As an Administrator

• If the author field defaults to you and you know it is an existing item on the DB, STOP. It means that something has changed