Blair's Brain

My status updates – what can I improve?

Blair McBride — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:28:06 +0000

I’ve been posting weekly status updates for awhile now (since August 9, 2009). I think they’re an important part of communicating exactly what it is I (and the rest of the Firefox team) am working on, and how things a progressing. Not only that, it’s a great way of getting unsolicited feedback, as I often get comments on these posts. So from my point of view, these posts been a great success.

But I want to know if I can improve them. What would you like to see more of? Or less of? Should I have more detail on what I’ve achieved, or what I’m planning? Should I be less whimsical? Should I reflect more on the past week, and on life in general? Should the format be altered? Should I include more pictures of cute kittens with amusing captions?

Status update

Blair McBride — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:22:43 +0000

Few days late on this – oops. I’ll be at the Mountain View office next week for a Firefox team work week – any hacking I get a chance to do will probably be on random things, rather than my usual projects. If you’re in the office and want to catch up or talk about anything, come and find me. No idea what area I’ll be in, but just look for the hairiest person you can find.

Extension Manager UI Redesign

Status

Solidified some interactions and how views are implemented & interact
Helped Mossop figure out some API bugs (turns out, extensions.ini is important!)
Some progress on updating addons

Loose ends

Still waiting on the project branch (bug 542910)

Next steps

Install/uninstall/update/enable/disable
AMO Search
Help with API development

Target for next week

None (getting the most out of the work week takes priority)

Tab matches in Awesomebar

Status

Code review complete
Waiting on superreview for API changes

Status update

Blair McBride — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:22:45 +0000

Extension Manager UI Redesign

Status

Download progress widget done. Should be possible to do a fancy button -> progress transition.
Local search done – including sorting based on relevance to search string
AMO search not done – need API support and UX details
Lot’s of UX questions for Boriss
Weekly meeting notes here

Loose ends

Waiting on project branch to be setup (bug 542910)

Next steps

Install/uninstall/update/enable/disable
AMO Search
Help with API development

Target for next week

Install/uninstall/update/enable/disable (assuming API support is ready)
Otherwise, integration issues

Tab matches in Awesomebar

Status

Another round of reviews. Getting there!

Loose ends

None

Next steps

Followups: 530209, 546253, 546254, 546255, 539357

Target for next week

Landed? Plz?

Miscellaneous

As a fun side-project, I’ve been playing with making the Firefox team’s projects page look pretty. You can see the result here: http://theunfocused.net/moz/status/status.html. Uses a bunch of newer CSS stuff, so requires Firefox 3.6+ (support for other modern browsers is next-weekend’s task). Using YQL, it pulls data from the projects page, whois page, and planet Firefox.

Reflections

Learn like you know nothing

Status update

Blair McBride — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:27:09 +0000

Extension Manager UI Redesign

Status

Planned for eventual mozilla-central landing – want to get initial parts landed before betas
Major AMO integration will probably be done as followups
Have been bringing UI up to speed with changes in mockups
Started looking at install/updates before realizing it’s not in the API yet

Loose ends

Boriss was away for the latest meeting, need to catch up
Waiting on project branch to be setup (bug 542910)

Next steps

UX discussions! UX discussions! UX discussions!
Implement helper widgets
Install/uninstall/update/enable/disable
Search
Help with API development

Target for next week

Catch up with Boriss
Implement various widgets – download progress, ratings, etc
Start implementing search (only local, until the API supports AMO searching)

Tab matches in Awesomebar

Status

Refactored UI for better toolkit/browser separation
Renamed “open tab” concept to the more generic “open page”
Must remember that adding a constant doesn’t mean the interface needs a change of UUID
Waiting on next review, then SR

Loose ends

None

Next steps

Land
Tackle followup bugs

Target for next week

Landed on mozilla-central

Reflections

I need to get better at estimating time required for larger projects
I’m having far too much fun for this to be considered “work”

On open video and exclusion

Blair McBride — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 03:02:54 +0000

Important note: This post is my own opinion. Nothing more, nothing less.

No doubt you’ve heard of Youtube and Vimeo launching their beta HTML5 players. There’s been a lot of talk around the codec that these use: H.264. While Firefox has great support for HTML5 , it doesn’t support the (patented) H.264 codec, so you can’t use those players in Firefox. This is because Mozilla believes (and I concur) that H.264 is not good for the open web.

If you haven’t already, I recommend you read…

Yea, I know that’s a lot of reading. But they’re worth it.

Anyway, some people have suggested the following solutions:

Use the codec that comes with the OS (if any)
License H.264 and only ship it with binary versions of Firefox (leaving other distributors, embeddors, and other less well-funded browser vendors in the cold)
Only ship H.264 in Firefox to people living in countries where software patents are not enforceable (live in the US? Too bad!)

These solutions are, frankly, selfish. What these solutions propose is that it’s okay for only the privileged to have access to the web. This is not okay. It is not okay to exclude people from the web. Not because of the hardware they have, the OS they run, the client software they use, where they live, or how much money they have. Not for any reason. The web is meant to be participatory – let’s keep it that way.

No related posts.

Status update

Blair McBride — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:08:25 +0000

Tab matches in Awesomebar

Status

“$” or “!” as the restrict character? Got i18n input: smontagu suggested “%” as a more common character on non-US keyboards
Discovered a (small) issue with having such a normalized DB schema
Unit tests (why do these take SO much time?!)
In process of final code review

Loose ends

None

Next steps

Address reviewer’s comments
Get SR review for API changes

Target for next week

Final reviews and (finally) landing

Extension Manager UI Redesign

Status

Meetings, plannings, and discussions, oh my!

Loose ends

None

Next steps

Bring UI in line with newer mockups
Handle installing and updating

Target for next week

Extract mockups from Boriss’s brain
Act on said mockups
Handle updates

Miscellaneous

Firefox 3.6 released. Boo-ya!

Reflections

5am start to a 13 hour day makes the next day really difficult.

Firefox 3.6 is out!

Blair McBride — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:01:55 +0000

You may have heard: Firefox 3.6 is out. Its pretty awesome. I helped make it. That makes it extra special.

If you use Firefox, you should upgrade – its easy! And if you don’t use Firefox, give it a try! Here’s why:

Download it from firefox.com!

Firefox 3.6 knows when your plugins are out of date

Status update

Blair McBride — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:24:46 +0000

Got back from my “holiday” late last week, after taking a 3-day roadtrip home. While away I mostly worked on the new Extension Manager UI, and am rather pleased with it all. Er, I relaxed and spent time with family too. Of course, almost everything else got ignored (including IRC). Back to the usual day-to-day awesomeness now.

Extension Manager UI Redesign

Status

Add-ons tree, list view, and detail view are all mostly implemented, hookup up the the new API, and look like the mockups
New API is really nice to use
Synced up with Mossop and Boriss (screensharing ftw!)
Sorted out a weekly meeting time (timezones are fun)

Loose ends

Need more data out of AMO’s API – Mossop has talked to people, filed bugs, etc

Next steps

Installation and updates
Searching

Target for next week

Tackle searching
Tweaks after latest round of mockups

Tab matches in Awesomebar

No update. Expect things to move quickly this week.

Reflections

Taking a break from a project can result in a more objective view of past decisions.
Starting new projects is fun.
Mondays are EVIL.

Status update

Blair McBride — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:43:52 +0000

I’m in beautiful Motueka for two and a half weeks, staying with Anne’s family; enjoying the scenery and generally relaxing. I’ll be working while up here (working remotely remotely – very meta), but don’t expect to see me on IRC as much as usual.

Tab matches in Awesomebar

Status

Fixed unit tests, and fixed code breaking unit tests
First code review done (epic job done by Marco) – very positive

Loose ends

Need an icon made (no rush for this)

Next steps

There’s a unit test that fails on the Tryserver Tinderbox but not locally on my machine – need to figure that out
Fix reviewer’s recommendations, rinse, repeat

Target for next week

Another round of reviews!

Extension Manager UI Redesign

Status

Re-read all (?) existing material, studied mockups, etc
Met with Mossop, who is designing and implementing the new API
Started building initial (dumb, non-interactive) prototype based on Boriss’s mockups

Loose ends

None

Next steps

Non-interactive prototype based on mockups
Start pulling info from new API, and provide Mossop with feedback from experience

Target for next week

At least one mockup looking the same in XUL

Miscellaneous

Bug 397937 (view-source on safebrowsing blocked pages) is ready to be landed (also fixes bug 435726)

Reflections

Being stuck on a slow 3G connection may prove to be actually good for my productivity
Hot weather is not good for my productivity (counteracting the above point)

Status update

Blair McBride — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:18:29 +0000

Sadly, I missed the the Mozilla Corp All-Hands last week in Mountain View, due to a nasty flu bug (bad timing, I know). But I hear it was pretty awesome – photos here. See everyone next time!

Tab matches in Awesomebar

Status

Various UI bugs fixed
Discussion on improving the UI further
Fixed bitrot from changes made in bug 527311 (that was a “fun” merge)
Made some toolkit code less specific to just tab-matches
Unit tests (and debugging existing tests – caught some weird behavior)

Loose ends

UI still not finalized. Might need to land on trunk and tweak UI in followup bugs (assuming review goes smoothly¹)

Next steps

UI adjustments
Finish tweaking matching code
Review

Target for next week

Make tab-matching dependent on autocompletesearchparam attribute (current it’s a global pref)
Some small changes to matching behavior (some assumptions changed after seeing some tests fail)
More UI tweaking/experimentation
Code review (regardless of whether UI is finalized or not)

Miscellaneous

Fixed about:jetpack on trunk (bug 534384), awaiting review
Finally got a patch up for bug 397937 (view-source for safebrowsing blocked pages), awaiting review

Reflections

Missing an All-Hands due to sickness sucks.
My co-workers rock – they somehow manage to look out for me when I’m sick, even from the other side of the world. Thanks guys
Teaching is the greatest way to learn

¹ That’s not a completely unrealistic expectation, right? RIGHT?