fligtar.com

I just released Password Exporter 1.1 after over a year since the last release. I’ve been getting several emails a week asking about Firefox 3 compatibility, but due to the Firefox 3 complete Login Manager rewrite, it wasn’t an easy fix. I rewrote the extension pretty much entirely, and split the Firefox 2/Thunderbird code into a different file from Firefox 3. From this point on, Firefox 2/Thunderbird is in maintenance mode and new features will probably only be added to Firefox 3. I had to drop support for Firefox 1.5 in this version, but exports can still be made from an older version like 1.0.6.

In addition to Firefox 3 support, this version added a number of new features including a cool import progress bar, a number of bug fixes, and a new locale (ja-JP - Japanese) bringing the total number of supported languages to 20. You can see the rest of the changes in the changelog.

If I have time, I expect I’ll be releasing a minor update in a few weeks with some locales that couldn’t update this week, as well as some bugfixes for things that will probably be discovered next week. I have a few new bigger features that I’d like to tackle in the coming months, but I may not have time.

If you already have the extension installed, Firefox will detect the update sometime over the next 24 hours. If not, you can always download it or check out the new website.

I had planned on making a post about the new website comparing Google Code Project Hosting to Trac, but couldn’t get around to it. Maybe I’ll do that soon. I’ve been very happy with GCPH - it’s very simple yet powerful.

In other Password Exporter news, there’s a MozillaZine thread about what was thought to be a security issue in the extension, but which I am considering to be a request for enhancement.

Update of 2006 State of the Projects.

Free-time project status:

• Password Exporter - Finished version 1.1 this week and is currently awaiting localization to the 20 languages it’s now in. Should be released sometime the first week of January. More details on that version will be in an upcoming post. Password Exporter has now been download over 203,000 times and has about 70,000 active users every day.
• FavLoc - Haven’t had time to work on it. Will try to find time to update compatibility for Firefox 3 sometime soon, but doubt I’ll add any new features. 28,000 downloads and 6,000 active users.
• LSU Campus Map - I haven’t updated anything since I first made it a few years ago, but it’s still very popular with people just searching for an LSU campus map. It had especially high traffic following the recent shooting on campus.
• All other projects including arraise, Startup Authenticator, Degree Analyzer, elurt, and all other ideas in my head that I detail but never start - I haven’t had time to work on and are pretty much dead.

Work project status:

• addons.mozilla.org - Remora was launched in March and the AMO team is currently working on version 3.2 to be launched in mid-January. I’ve been working on a statistics dashboard for add-on developers, and after 3.2 will be continuing to work mainly on AMO stuff, probably including a Developer Control Panel revamp with lots of new features.
• Operation Firefox - Contest was a big success and winners were announced earlier this month. Site will probably stay the way it is.
• Extend Firefox - Contest ends tonight. Future plans to be announced later.
• Rock Your Firefox - 0.6 released. Work on other milestones is not currently scheduled, and the app is pretty much in maintenance mode right now.
• Personas - Site hasn’t officially launched yet, but has been finished for a few weeks.
• Misc. other projects popping up and going away just as quickly.

The last few days I’ve been cleaning up a lot of site stuff, as I was quite shocked to find I had over 50 subdomains on this site, many of which are no longer used. I think I’ll be removing the ribbon from my pages soon, as I don’t think it’s helping anything.

This week I decided I want to work on my site and extensions a bit before I live and breath Mozilla for the next 3 months. Enter the ribbon. It's something I've wanted to do for quite awhile, and it took a bit longer than I expected.

I added what I'm calling a ribbon (unrelated to Office 2007) to the main fligtar.com sites, like this blog. Clicking on it will bring down a menu of other things on fligtar.com.

I wanted to be able to easily modify an existing site to use this style and I wanted to be able to modify the menu content in one place, but I didn't want to use PHP.

I'm pretty happy with the result (I won't say "Mission Accomplished"), as including the ribbon without gradient can be done by:

... and the gradient is 2 lines more.

The process I went through to create this reveals why it took longer than expected:

1. Determine color scheme
2. Make shiny bar
3. Place shiny bar
4. Make 4 versions of logo that I'm not happy with
5. Make 2 entirely functional menus before deciding I want the ribbon to drop down
6. Fight with IE
7. Realize that some sites (blog and LSU map) can't use the gradient
8. Separate gradient from shiny bar and redo that area of CSS
9. Deploy to all sites
10. Fight with trac's CSS which did not play nicely with mine
11. Win!

I called this Part 1, but my current plan is basically:

1. Implement Ribbon
2. ...
3. Profit!

FavLoc 1.1 was released on Friday, with a number of improvements:

• Added locales: hu-HU, ko-KR, sk-SK
• Added support for Thunderbird 1.5-2.0b2, Firefox 3.0a2
• FavLoc now supports Thunderbird for saving attachments!
• File overwrite protection: Choose whether to always overwrite, always make unique, always manually rename, or always ask
• Added option to automatically select last saved location in download prompts
• Added option to automatically select FavLoc in download prompts
• Re-designed executable download prompt to be more compatible with other extensions
• FavLoc now uses an XPCOM component
• Fixed bugs in 1.1

You can download the new version from Mozilla Add-ons or visit the website here.

I've been trying to balance all of the different projects I'm working on right now. I get an e-mail a day about the same bug in Password Exporter that I need to fix, feature requests for FavLoc, anywhere from 30-100 emails about AMO/Remora stuff, and other projects that don't email me but give me imaginary puppy faces when I think about them.

Active projects status:

• Password Exporter - Finished version 1.0.6 tonight, waiting on translations into the 17 languages it's now in. Hit 35,000 downloads recently.
• FavLoc - Need to add support for a new Firefox 2 window, but having trouble finding time as there are similar extensions now.
• AMO/Remora - Trying to work on as much as possible. We've passed our deadline several times now. I really need to finish the Review Queue, go back and add some stuff to Add Item, then port those changes to Edit Item/Version. I'm hoping I'll be able to work on during any free time at the summit. (bugs todo and already done)
• Startup Authenticator - A few people have reported that they still are shown the login page after they login and it tells them that they're already logged in. Need to work on a fix for that.
• Degree Analyzer - New project that I'm eager to work on, but as it's new and unreleased, trying to spend my time on more important things.
• ENS - New web startup idea. I'm supposed to be working on the prototype while Mike finishes up the business model and checks out the legality and maybe files patents. When (if) remora is ever finished, this is what I will mainly be working on, minus some occasional AMO bugfixes for a change of scenery. Can't really talk about this one.
• blog.fligtar.com - I redid the formatting and layout of my blog and plan on posting more frequently.
• planet.fligtar.com - I started to setup a planet fligtar site but didn't finish the styling. I guess it doesn't matter much since it's for me and I'm using it for RSS which doesn't show styling. If you're not familiar with the planet system, it's a feed aggregator of everyone on it's subscription list so that readers can subscribe to one RSS feed and get everyone's updates - or if you don't like RSS, you can just go to the site. That + Livejournal crosspost eliminates my hesitations about switching to a real blog on my site. I just added Jeremy and myself, but if you have a non-LJ blog that you'd like added, feel free to let me know.

Not much going on this week in school now. I have a presentation in Business Communication on Monday and an exam in Business Statistics, but from Tuesday through Saturday I'll be in Mountain View, California rediscovering the web in person.

Startup Authenticator

As you probably know, many places that offer wireless require you to login to an account as soon as you open your browser (such as LSU, OLOL, apartment complexes, etc.). This is slightly annoying, but has been tolerable. With the upcoming release of Firefox 2 and its new session restore feature, a more serious problem occurs. When restoring a previous session, all of my tabs will open up with that login page instead of the page it should be.

I've made a quick extension that will fix this problem. Every time you start your browser, it will attempt to log you into the designated sites (with your username and password saved in Firefox) before any pages load. You can also activate this by pressing F2 when the browser is already open (useful if you suspend your computer instead of turning it off). You can get the LSU version here. (It also includes Sterling University Apartments because I'm too lazy to make 2 separate extensions and I made this for me - but it doesn't matter because if you don't have a password saved for a site, it won't try to login to it)

Note that as stated above, this requires that you have your login info saved in Firefox's password manager for the login sites. I don't really have time to expand the extension much right now, but if people like it, I will add some functionality in the future, such as visible signs that you are being logged in and support for XML imports/exports so if Person A lives at SuperApartments, he can easily integrate his own login requirements and share it with Person B.

Also, this was a quick extension that I put together and tested the basic functionality. If your password has been changed, the extension will obviously not work until you update the password stored in Firefox (which should be easy since you'll be presented with the login screen). Also, security notices will still appear if you don't have a certificate installed or if there's a domain mismatch (there's an extension available to "fix" that).

Firefox 2 Summit

I'll be going to Mountain View, California for 5 days next month for the Firefox 2 Summit. I'm really excited about meeting all the people I've been working with on IRC and getting a firsthand look at all the planning going into Firefox 3, and of course the celebration of Firefox 2 and other fun outings planned in Silicon Valley.

I have been working on various Firefox extensions nonstop lately.

The most successful has been Password Exporter with currently 5500 downloads from the Mozilla Update Site. It's pretty cool seeing something you made translated into 9 languages, including some that don't even use the same alphabet as us.

I have 6 active extensions... one no one will ever see the awesomeness of because it's used internally at my office. Another is currently in development, and another is supposed to be funny. I've been using Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 lately for extension testing and I like 2.0 but I'm not a big fan of what I've seen in 3.0 yet... oh well.

Weeee, FavLoc made it to Mozilla Update! If you have it installed, please download it from there so that when I update it you will get the updates.

Unfortunately, it's not going to get 1000+ downloads the first day like my other extension because it's already been knocked off the front page because apparently they have an approval spurt today.

I am currently working on another extension that has no point but should be humorous.

Edit: Ok, you don't actually have to download it from there to get the updates... if you already have it installed and you hit "Find Updates" it will still update. But I still want the download count!

Last weekend I moved all of my mom's old stuff from her computer to my old computer which has been passed down to her. She asked if her saved usernames and passwords in Firefox would be transferred. I looked into it and couldn't figure out a way to export them, short of using Google Browser Sync which gets extremely annoying after about 2 seconds.

I wrote Password Exporter which has now been added to Mozilla's Addons site. It exports/imports saved passwords from one computer to another, or just for backing them up.

All this extension coding inspired me to update FavLoc and submit it as well, so hopefully it will be approved and placed on there soon as well.

I recently created a map of the LSU Campus using the Google Maps API. Check it out at http://lsu.fligtar.com!