Help us improve the Opera extensions catalog

Help us improve the Opera extensions catalog

Have you already seen our Opera extensions catalog?

What do you think? Is there anything missing?

If you are a developer, what is your experience uploading your extensions? Is the publishing process clear enough?

Your feedback will help us improve

Please note that this thread is about the Opera Extensions catalog.

Add a comment to this article An Important piece of the puzzle for anything related to the browser implementation in the Opera 11 Alpha: Extension Manager, where extensions are placed, how they are installed, etc.

Or talk about extensions you may want to have in the Extensions wishlist.

To give feedback on current extensions please review if there is already a thread for this extension in the Opera Extensions forum, if not, create a thread and start commenting.

Or if you are a developer and have questions on the implementation, check our Opera Extensions Development Discussions

---
please note that I am reviewing this forum constantly and writing down all the good ideas or problems, sorry if I don't reply on everything, but be sure that someone is reading your comments

I would suggest a link to the extension's description/info page in the Manage Extensions entries.

Also a checkbox by each entry in the catalogue would be great for people installing a list of extensions at once, then have the extensions install one right after another could for long time users make it much faster and friendlier to install them when rebuilding Opera or helping someone with a new install.

Allow us to edit/delete reviews that we have posted.

Mod edit: This is about the site extensions are downloaded from, not the actual implementation in Opera.

1) Allow rate of extensions without necessity to leave a post

3) A little bit more description of extensions will be great
4) Add new General Opera topic for extensions in forum

But after all - it is really exciting to see extensions in our Opera - Thank You guys and may the Force be with You!



Mod edit: Removed items not related to the actual site.

As every submission will require manual approval, are you sure the current Opera infrastructure and human resource are accommodating? say, if and when (I hope ) Opera is increasingly popular and got a surge of extension like Fx did?
They have 5000+ ext or so and must have plenty of them updating everyday.

I strongly suggest Opera to create a kind of Extension maturity system, so unreviewed extension can still be downloaded by users after they receive a warning.

That way extension updates could be distributed more quickly, and no nagging when you try to review the submitted extensions carefully.

P.S I've seen it mentioned somewhere in the Up North Web, that Opera would provide an easy way to port certain browser add-on to Opera extension.
How about the dev team trying to port the most popular extensions in that certain browser?

Please add sort by "Date" for easy locating of new extensions. Thanks.

Originally posted by Torrente:

Please add sort by "Date" for easy locating of new extensions. Thanks.

+1.

It can't be seen yet, but will the comments break into pages? After my experience with the Z1-Glass skin and it's 757 comments, I would strongly suggest that.

When commenting, please keep in mind that this thread is about the extensions site, not about the implementation in Opera itself.

Originally posted by haavard:

This thread is about the extensions site, not about the implementation in Opera. Please keep that in mind when commenting.

Sorry for not being more attentive, maybe there should be another post regarding the extensions implementation (and a link to that thread in the first post of this thread) and the data that belongs there (like my post above ) be moved into that other thread.

Originally posted by albuemil:

Originally posted by haavard:

This thread is about the extensions site, not about the implementation in Opera. Please keep that in mind when commenting.

Sorry for not being more attentive, maybe there should be another post regarding the extensions implementation (and a link to that thread in the first post of this thread) and the data that belongs there (like my post above ) be moved into that other thread.

I can move your long post from before into its own thread, so as to keep it separate from this thread. However, I would recommend that you keep comments about the site, and comments about Opera itself separate.

Edit: Your post is here: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=776702

Suggestions for specific extensions should be sent to the authors.

Mod edit: Keep in mind that this is about the site extensions are downloaded from, not the actual implementation in Opera.

Thanx for moving the post to its own thread.

Regarding the site :
- i'd like to see the author of the extension in the list of extensions, maybe even sort extensions by developers, will be usefull when having lots of extensions.
- show a combobox at the bottom of the page with how many items to show with the ability to chose from 10, 20, 50 (probably won't need more than that)

I've found a bug in the ratings, perhaps someone else can confirm this.

Any reviews below More show a false rating of 5 stars.

If you select any extension that has more then 5 reviews you have to click More to see other reviews. When the extra reviews load all the ratings show as 5 star but if you hover over the rating you will see the real score

Maybe join together skins + addons + widgets + Unite apps into one generic addon fucntionality and also joint these four websites into one big site of Opera addons, sortable by different types. That would be the ultimate solution

Originally posted by haavard:

When commenting, please keep in mind that this thread is about the extensions site, not about the implementation in Opera itself.

Ah..sorry, I didn't should have read the 1st post more carefully.
Regarding the website:
i) The author name should be displayed more prominently.
ii) A brief description of exactly what an Opera extension is won't hurt.
iii) Would be cool, if the install button would change to uninstall automatically, if the extension is already installed.
iv) Option to favourite some extensions.

Add sorting by date, please. Like it has been already done for unite.opera.com.

First off all, i think (and hope) that design is in alpha too (correct me if im wrong) so im not going to mention things like "top-picks" on main page.

I agree with "rate without login" maybe with bigger value if you are logged in. Option to rate the comments would be good.
Screenshots thumbnails arent pretty and the big ones are sometimes too big.
And maybe the extensions from Opera itself or some other trustworthy companies should be highlighted.

Design

• Pretty clean, but done without love to details.
• Not very efficient way of using space. Think about multicolumn layout (maybe fluid or elastic ones). Apple and Google arranged list of extensions in multicolumn way.
• Too much space for featured items, main content is almost hidden under the fold.
• Probably sorting navigation should be more prominent and looks more like tabs.

Usability

• There should be clear indication where are links, where are navigation, where are buttons. Links always should be underlined or/and blue.
• Comments (reviews) should have formating abilities (new lines, bold, italic, better to give all formating abilities that my.opera has)
• Users should have ability to edit their comments (reviews) and update rating. Users may want to update rating after they try next version of add-on or just discover something (un)cool that they missed from the first sight.
• The list of add-ons should have pagination, maybe in addition to More link.
• Too small amount of items before you show More link (25 or more would be better).
• Hover frame effect over each comment is distracting and don't do anything useful.
• Would be cool if the portal knows which add-on is installed and indicates that somehow (uninstall or upgrade instead install, if add-on already installed and so on).
• Add sorting by "freshness"

Good work anyway for Alpha stage. Keep it up!

P.S. What the matter with lists?

Originally posted by Kildor:

Add sorting by date, please. Like it has been already done for unite.opera.com.

+1
And mandatory english description and name for extensions (which might be supplemented by a non-english description).

Cool, I'm sincerely happy Opera dev actually taking time responding to us.

Originally posted by Necroman:

Maybe join together skins + addons + widgets + Unite apps into one generic addon fucntionality and also joint these four websites into one big site of Opera addons, sortable by different types. That would be the ultimate solution " class="smilie" width="17" height="17">

+1
Superb, that way the add-ons site will looked like it has bunch of extensions.
Well, not all people will use all of them, but number does matter, doesn't it? especially in advertising.

I wish we could just leave a comment with out rating. Coz if we could not use the extension and we want to tell the problem, there wouldnt be any use in rating it.

Originally posted by Necroman:

Maybe join together skins + addons + widgets + Unite apps into one generic addon fucntionality and also joint these four websites into one big site of Opera addons, sortable by different types. That would be the ultimate solution

+1

Here are my feedbacks. (Mostly complaints, unfortunately, but I believe they are useful complaints. sorry if you are offended by my wordings.)

Language selection dropdown has only Russian and English.

The URL: http://addons.labs.opera.com/addons/extensions/
Sigh... About the URL. Opera should do their branding better. Do you guys want to call it the addon? or the extension? Why not just http://extensions.opera.com/ ?

I've written multi-line descriptions, came out just one line... https://addons.labs.opera.com/developer/extensions/details/pixivreader/1.2.1/

Having to raise version number if I want to change screenshot, change description, etc. even if my .oex is the same as before. I would like to keep the version number if I don't change the file itself. Sometimes I just want to add a line to the description.

Only versioned URL. I think we should only be able to access the latest version. If I announce an extension on my blog, I need to update the blog post every time the extension gets upgraded. (because I don't want to supply people old versions)

Finally, can I publish a GPL extension on the Opera extension catalog? Is either of the Opera Hosting License or the Apache License 2.0 compatible with the GPL? I don't want to be shut out of the catalog just because my extension use some GPL code.

Ability to report bugs and see list of issues like on Unite page.

You should require more detailed description from authors because for example "noscript,noscript,script,external,bs-harou" might be little confusing for users that are unfamiliar with Firefox extensions.

Also this shows that tags system would be helpful.

And last thing - clicking on author name could lead to his/her profile with list of all made by that person extensions and some contact info.

BTW since current address include "labs" does it mean it's just temporary? Will you change it later to extensions.opera.com or something like that?

Originally posted by Astrophizz:

Allow us to edit/delete reviews that we have posted.

+1

would be nice to change the comment and the rating if the extension got improved. or just for fixing typos

enable download of extensions instead of installing directly.
add newest category to see the new extensions uploaded

I love the "New" button in Opera Unite website, please add a category to see new extensions uploaded

A different profile for the authors, to more information or contact..

BugTracker system perhaps

Originally posted by clashcityrocker:

Would like to know details on how extensions are versioned, how updates are notified and installed.

Opera extensions are based on the W3C Widgets Packaging mechanism and will not reinvent the wheel. The W3C Widgets specification covers update, so here's your answer. I suspect the default will be to auto-update the extensions to provide users with the latest version and fixes of their extensions. Of course manual update will be possible.

Originally posted by lifeh2o:

enable download of extensions instead of installing directly.

You can right click "Save Linked Content As..."

Originally posted by christarzan:

The inter-process messaging API, is strictly asynchronous, I want it to synchronize atleast once per website

That's HTML5 Cross-Document messaging for you. Also you just don't want extensions to be synchronous and lock down your browser.

Descriptions of extensions are too short, sometimes more information would be usefull.
I hope the reviewing process won't take too long, the number of extensions is growing very slowly. I know it's been only 2 days since eh alpha, I guess we will have to wait and see how it's gonna be managed.

A unique page for widgets, unite apps and extensions would be usefull (and logic).

Thumbnails of screenshots are full-resolution. What's the deal with that?

Originally posted by tomassplatch:

I hope the reviewing process won't take too long, the number of extensions is growing very slowly.

Maybe they could show on front page number of extensions that are waiting for approval.

Originally posted by tomassplatch:

A unique page for widgets, unite apps and extensions would be usefull (and logic).

One page to rule them all? Yeah, right now all those pages looks different. Why not just put all of them under http://my.opera.com/community/customize/ ?

Originally posted by Morphdreamer:

Originally posted by tomassplatch:

I hope the reviewing process won't take too long, the number of extensions is growing very slowly.

Maybe they could show on front page number of extensions that are waiting for approval.

I think that for now is a really good idea but when the extensions catalog leaves alpha either put that number on a different page or don't show it at all.

Originally posted by IceArdor:

Thumbnails of screenshots are full-resolution. What's the deal with that?

I also have another problem in opera 10.7/opera 11 when i click on the thumbnails the first time doesn't work but if i close that modal window and then click the thumbnail again it works and it shows the full image when normally it should be resized to the width/height of the modal window.

Originally posted by Cjcr:

Originally posted by Torrente:

Please add sort by "Date" for easy locating of new extensions. Thanks.

+1.

+1 also

don't like the way the pages are navigated (ajax?) - dislike the "more" at the bottom of the page would prefer option of how many per page (I like all)

also, more detailed descriptions of what they do

is it a requirement that all extensions work on all os's? if not can the there be a designator indicating which os's it will function under

and a "updated" filter

Mod edit: Please do not derail the discussion. This is about the extensions site.

Sort by date

See which extension already are installed

If possible, combine the extension site with the extension manager, so you can download extensions inside the extension manager (like the way firefox 4 does)

Originally posted by edvakf:

The URL: http://addons.labs.opera.com/addons/extensions/
Sigh... About the URL. Opera should do their branding better. Do you guys want to call it the addon? or the extension? Why not just http://extensions.opera.com/ ?

Uh, it's released on labs.opera.com as an alpha. What on earth did you expect? It's obviously a temporary location.

Why don't you let the Opera guys worry about where to put things? Stop crying about things that are none of your business.

All of my thoughts about the extension catalogue have been expressed earlier, so I'm only adding my support to them, but here they are:

1. The design is functional but very spartan, the overall look just doesn't scream "official Opera web page" to me.
2. Sorting by date, both of initial release and of latest update, would be extremely useful.
3. A method of submitting comments separately from reviewing the extension; I've already seen a number of "reviews" simply used to ask questions about the plugin.
4. Thumbs up/down for comments with one or two top-rated comments appearing toward the top somewhere, just so users can get a third party impression of the extension.

Make the addons catalog work with the extensions.. the extensions dont work in the addons web.. and this make people say "Dont work" because her test the extension in the same web of downloading.

Sry for the bad english xD

Off-topic comment removed by mod.

Please make an extension which is same the FFixer It's very useful and helpful for using Facebook and additionally if you do not know that, FFixer is Mozilla Firefox's add-on

Lose the ajax "More" button, paginate the catalog but make the switching of the pages done with ajax, (see how digg's homepage is done if it's not clear what i mean)

Add Order by date/update time

and this:

Originally posted by vaguerant:

1. The design is functional but very spartan, the overall look just doesn't scream "official Opera web page" to me.

Top 7 recommendations
=============================

1) A more balance view: Show the top positive comments along with the top negative comments.
2) Attach comments to version: Comments added ought to be attached to the version a user tested. If no current comments, then showing old comments is fine but with a note on what version.
3) Daily Featured - Can't be sure if it's currently built in as is now, but a unique extension should be highlighted randomly every day (pref where using that section highlighing reddit is at now) To maintain minimal overhead and quality, it ought to be a random selection to give everyone a chance of visibility. To keep minimal quality, cut the list of potential candidates, use some filters as in at least 3 stars + X num of downloads (or something to that effect)
4) "Spam" button - Add a button on each extension where the community may flag an extension as spammy, malware, or doing terrible stuff. Think of pushing some quality control to community in case it bypasses Opera's stringent review. After a certain number of complaints, an email should shoot off to OEX maintainers for review
5) Deve page: Each author should have a profile page. (bio, link page, etc) Give developers respect. People may love an extension so much, they may want to see what else he built. In the same token, perhaps create an algorithm to rate developers based on rating, # of comments, etc all their extensions get. If work is consistently high, perhaps indicate it via a small badge. Of course, none of this should be emphasized design=wise as its secondary.
6) Review section area: On the actual OEX page, in the review form section, move the stars rater to the left and align with text area so user's eye doesn't need to wander and can simply look down. While at it, move both the text area and star rater to its own "row"
7) Related OEX: On the actual OEX page, create a section on the right sidebar to highlight other dev extensions. If dev doesn't have any, then random but related OEX from other devs

Well, that's all I can think of after a quick review. Also, have you guys thought of making a paid OEX section in the future (not now though). Would provide an incentive for devs and can pe topped at 99 cents.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think -@sutiben

needs sort by upload date and by updated date options

With Opera Extensions being new, I'm glad you're asking for feedback to make sure its done right and the most important thing is that extensions are easy to find and install. The biggest suggestion I can offer is to compare the Firefox add-ons page design/features to the one for Google Chrome extensions and make sure that Opera's pages offer the same useful features.

I'm sure thats been done to a certain extent, but I'm finding differences that I think will impact the success of Opera Extensions purely based on page layout/design. Here are my suggestions/concerns:

1. Both Google Chrome Extensions and Firefox Add-ons pages put a large amount of focus on the ability to search:

While Opera's pages offer a search, it doesn't feel as attention demanding and certainly isn't large enough when compared to the others who give a generous amount of space for searching.

2. I find Firefox's "Popular Tags" to be very useful.

3. I like seeing the number of users/downloads without having to view the extensions profile for more details. Its easier to get an idea of which ones are really being used by others when you can compare download counts while scrolling through rather than clicking for more information for this.

4. Tags, tags, tags, tags, tags. As before, Firefox's add-ons allows developers to add many tags to their extensions to make them more interlinked with other similar or related extensions with the ease of selecting one of their tags. Obviously this is only useful when its not abused, but the way Firefox Add-ons pages use them makes this a feature worth implementing (possibly even for Widgets and Unite applications as well).

5. The screenshot feature is nice and I like how it doesn't open in a new page, but why not implement a style like the one Google Chrome Extensions pages use that's similar to how eBay shows images as well? Update the same image element with ones that the user clicks or hovers and it removes the second click to exit the image view before installing or searching again. From a usability stand point, this is just the most efficient method.

6. The developers section is too small and cramped.

7. Download size is irrelavent/useless here. As far as I can tell, Google and Mozilla believe the same and don't waste page space with this information that most people probably don't care about anyway.

8. Use commas for large numbers. Its not nearly as aesthetically pleasing to see "Downloads: 4121820" as it is to see "Downloads: 4,121,820". It also just looks like the site design is not finished regardless of if it is or not.

9. The version and date information seem pretty standard, though as I said before, this section feels cramped.

10. Please implement the ability for developers to specify, ex: "Works with: Opera 11.xx - 14.xx". Firefox's Add-ons page does this and AFAIK it stops you or warns you that you're installing an add-on thats not been tested with your version of Opera. WordPress also does this with Plug-ins and its very useful so you know whether to expect it to work or if you can just pass it on by because its outdated. Personally, I would prefer this system to be community driven to take the work load off of the developers and allow community members to optionally (and non-intrusively) vote that it does or doesn't work with their browser version.

11. Why not link to the developers My.Opera profiles so people can more easily message them and friend them and generally integrating more with the community?

12. The ability like/subscribe/follow an extension/developer for updates and changes.

13. The ability to "Share this Add-on" as Firefox's pages put it. This could be used to mention it on Twitter, Facebook, Email, My.Opera status, etc.

14. I like the way Firefox's pages add the version to the title in a way that separates the two, but makes the page cleaner by not just throughing numbers in a list (which I think makes the page look more machine made and less intuitive).

15. There should be the ability to file bugs like there is with Widgets, or contact the developer directly. I found that many people seek support through the comments section and that is just inefficient for both the users and the developers. This should be highlighted to stop people from posting help questions into the abyss where they will likely go unnoticed for some extensions.

16. When you open an extensions profile, it would be nice to see 3 to 5 "similar" extensions in the right column as well as the main categories for easier navigation.

17. This is a mix of site design and application implementation, so I'm not trying to get off topic, but it would be great to show "Installed" in the page for extensions that are already installed. This is done with "Apps" for the iPhone/iPod/iPad and possible others, but it makes it clear that you've got it installed already. It might be ideal to add a link or something below the "Installed" button that says "Enable" for users who may have disabled it and not known.

18. I love the simplicity of the reviews feature, but can the posted reviews please be contained with something...even a light border like #eeeeee so they are visually separated? This just seems like one of those usability things that should be attended to.

19. I'd like for all categories and filters (Popular, Recommended, Rating, Alphabetical) to be sortable as already mentioned, but also add "New", "Updated", "Editors Picks", "Your Favorites", "Random List" or "Random Extension", and "Extension of the Day".

Overall, I think you've already got the most basic things accomplished. I understand you may not be applying all of my suggestions or feedback, but I wanted to thoroughly point out things that I had issues with or thought could be improved. Please do consider my suggestions though.

Mozilla has Donations for developers, someone can donate to the maker of an extension; having that could draw developers to develop an extension.

+1 to all kyleabaker said except #8 (not everyone in the wold use comma as thousands separator)