Activate: Build Your Own WebExtension Add-on for Firefox

Add-ons Contribute
#1

Hi all!

We will be launching a new Activate Mozilla campaign, “Build Your Own WebExtension Add-on for Firefox,” in just a few days.

Through this activity, participants will learn how to create their own add-ons using WebExtensions APIs to solve real real problems and make their lives and the web better.

Please feel free to use this topic to discuss the activity. We would love to hear your thoughts and learn about the awesome add-ons you developed!

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#2

Update: the campaign is live! It can be found here.

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#3

We have held our first WebExtension activity on Wednesday.

https://www.meetup.com/Mozilla-Meetup-Switzerland/events/238221995/

@freaktechnik was kind enough to give us an introduction to WebExtensions and was available as a mentor with his amazing knowledge. This definitely helped a lot.

We got some initial feedback from participants and organizers as well: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/mozillach-webext-results

Here are some other remarks:

  • We made it “open end”, so participants can stay as long as they want
  • The majority of participants went home after they completed their first WebExtension from the tutorial
  • Having this activity without the pressure of “having to go home to relax after a hard day of work or going back to family” would help with that I think
  • Some of the participants (at least 2) had their own ideas on what WebExtensions they could do next
  • This was probably the first meetup we did where we got at least 2 comments with feedback on meetup.com after the meetup. Before that we had radio silence regarding feedback on meetup.com. This is quite interesting.
  • We are thinking about doing this again next month to have a followup (and introduction for new participants)

Cheers,
Michael

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#4

MozillaTN community had the first 24 hours hackathon on March 18th. We focused mainly 3 tracks L10n, WebVr and WebExtensions. I got opportunity to help students develop their Add-ons.

  • Gave the basic knowledge about contributing to Mozilla.
  • Shared why WebExtension development is easier and important.
  • Discussed about API for the add-ons students planning to develop.

Important Points to be noted

  1. Some of the students were introduced to HTML, CSS for first time so it was bit difficult for them to get started, but they were very eager to learn.
  2. One Professor who was with us for whole hackathon handling IP lab (where they teach HTML,CSS and JS to 3rd Engineering Students), she told it will be great to have Add-ons development as mini-projects for students will be trying in June-December 2017.

Detailed report in my blog post

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#5

Hey Friends,

We held an Add-on creation event here in Niterói, Brazil. We started organizing it before the MozActivate campaign was “active” so it was executed a bit differently than the instructions from the campaign.

You can read all about it at my little blog post about the Add-ons Hack Day.

Cheers
andre

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#6

Hello Mozillians!

Last week we held a Workshop here in Jaboticabal,Brazil. It was really amazing and after the workshop mostly of the participants said that is incredibly fun to build Add-ons! :smiley:

Full article about the Workshop:
http://jabukamoz.org/2017/04/11/flisol-2017-jaboticabal/?lang=en

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#7

Wonderful, @felipez3r0! Congrats on hosting a great event! I look forward to seeing the finished add-ons from the group. :slight_smile:

Thank you also for sending out the follow-up message with the link to the survey! It will be great to see what we can improve for future campaigns.

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#8

Hello

I gave my first talk on the WebExtensions in France, of which here are the slides [1]
I also made a demo to show visual effects [2]

My talk are the Sunday morning with a full room, and a streaming unannounced followed by 150 people.

Internet users are aware of the change, with the arrival of webextensions but do not realize the effects especially with the extensions that will not be translated.

Otherwise, I confirm that there is still a lot of work at communication because I have encountered many problems to make my extension, manage the permissions.

I will improve my scripts to make it easier for the general public to use and learn.

Of course, I will continue to translate the documentation into French (MDN) and that the subject will be presented.

But the good news, I have new ideas for making new webExtensions. :smiley:

[1] slide : https://fr.slideshare.net/hellosct1/les-webextensions-et-firefox
[2] script : https://github.com/hellosct1/demo-WebExt-manifest

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#9

Merci, @hellosct1! It sounds like you had a fantastic talk, and it will be so great to share your presentation slides with other native French speakers!

Is there anything we can do to help mitigate the effects of the non-translated extensions? I am wondering if we might be able to partner with localizers,

We look forward to seeing your extensions! :slight_smile:

1 Like
#10

All my presentations can be reused without problems. Especially as I will make others talk about it
And I can pass the original file.

Concerning translated and untranslated extensions, I have 2 ideas

  • the first one has to list what is already done and giving the name of the old one
  • The other is to improve the pages of the add-ons with a checkbox compatible webextension

But it’s a big job

I have an example, I use FirePHP from time to time which is an extension of Firebug. I know that the author of FirePHP does not plan to update it, but I have not yet looked at all the documentation to see how to extend an extension

These are just a few ideas

Furthermore, I was asked about the extensions that offer the responsive, accessibility … and I could not answer because I had not looked at whether the extensions were carried.

Finally, concerning the partner with localizers, with the event, it is possible since I am a member of the French community group and soon there is Mozilla Roadshow and Worshop QA at Mozilla Paris

#11

Hi all! I wanted to post an update with some fantastic resources developed by the community that could be incorporated into community events.

@VP7 wrote some blog posts with examples of how to use WebExtensions APIs:

@viswanathamsantosh created a slide deck for an upcoming event that looks pretty great and is available to be cloned, remixed, and used for other events.

If you have developed any materials about WebExtensions APIs for your community events and would like to share them, please please feel welcome to post them to this thread!

#12

Hey all,

We had an amazing Overnight Hackathon with 100 people attending the Hackathon and 20+ add-ons by the end of the Hackathon.

Have a look at our blogposts to find more info on what we did

Thank you,
Santosh.

2 Likes
#14