update firefox plugin

[Malte]

see ​http://www.deepamehta.de/en/content/deepamehta-firefox-plugin

[jri]

Hey, that's great!
Thank you for updating the Firefox plugin!

[Malte]

does it work for you?
i would be keen to know if the installation of the plugin with a macintosh os succeeds now.

[jri]

I installed it via double-clicking the .xpi
Mac OS didn't know which application to use for opening it.
After manual pointing to Firefox it installation seems to work.
I tested with Firefix 3.6 (I know it is outdated but I thought its a worthy try).

"DeepaMehta Toolbar" appears in View->Toolbars.
It is empty. That seems to be an error.

"Notice" appears in the context menu.
But its behavoir seems odd:

• At the first try nothing happened. No prompt appears. No topic is created.
• At the 2nd try (I visited the preferences pane meanwhile) the prompt appears. The Note topic is created and is associated to a Web Resource topic. Everything seems work as intended.
• At the 3rd try (I noticed a snippet from the same page) the created Note topic is created but associated to a URL topic. I would expect to find it associated to a Web Resource like in the 2nd try.
• Sometimes the prompt appears. Sometimes not. I can't recognize a pattern.

"Lookmarker 1.0-RC3" appears in Tools->Add-ons->Extensions.
Its preferences pane appears.

After my session I found these messages in the Firefox Error Console:

• Error: lookmarker.statusLabel is null

Source File: chrome://lookmarker/content/overlay.js
Line: 135

• Warning: reference to undefined property canvas_assocs[id]

Source File: ​http://localhost:8080/script/canvas_renderers/topicmap_renderer.js
Line: 702

• Warning: reference to undefined property canvas_topics[id]

Source File: ​http://localhost:8080/script/canvas_renderers/topicmap_renderer.js
Line: 669

Some thoughts:

• I'm confused about the name of the add-on. At various spots it appears as "DeepaMehta 4 Notetaker" (which I feel is most telling), "DeepaMehta Firefox Plugin", "Firefox Extension", "Lookmarker", "lookmarker[@]deepamehta.org" (which I feel is rather bulky and confusing). There should be a unique and consistent name.
• The meaning of the preference "Mark down text selections in HTML" is not clear to me. I found no explanation for it. Is it related to Markdown markup?
• I'm not shure about the add-on version I've installed (some months ago I tried installation already). The version in the add-ons dialog seems not accurate ("Lookmarker 1.0-RC3"). In contrast, the download file and the website states the latest is 1.0-RC4
• All wording appearing in the GUI should be revised for clarity. E.g. in the Preference pane: What is a "DeepaMehta Service Definition"? How is it related to a "DeepaMehta Service URL"? You could replace both simply by "DeepaMehta Host". That would be most commonly understood.
• The website text could be more concise. E.g. "First start your deepamehta installation or make sure you have an address of one running on the web" is not clear. What should I do with that address? Furthermore, I think starting DM doesn't belong to the "Configuration" section. There could be a "Running" section.
• Please don't write "deepamehta" anywhere, always "DeepaMehta" :-)

All in all its great to have that Firefox extension. There is great potential in it. I'll continue investigation and discussion.

[Malte]

The concurrent plan by now is, to fix some stuff and start discussion towards RC5, maybe we can continue to do both during the upcoming two weeks or so. we`ll see.

3.6.x doesnt have the so called "add-on"-bar yet, which the extension uses to talk to the user (e.g show notifications of what it sucessfully did, resp. what it couldnt do bcause of certain errors).

the file to use for tests is the RC4, with that, obviously, the existing installation-issues for macintosh users could be fixed, which is great news. this is encouraging me to go ahead with it and make operations rock solid in the next step.

extractig the HTML-markup of a selected text-passage on a website with javascript is currently limited in the plugin (max childelements of 2 or 3) and there may be no real satisfying solution near by. if the markup of the selected text-passage is to deep/contains more than <p>s and <a>s and some text-formatting, then the prompt does not appear :/ - i have to reserach on this matter again/and catch exceptions and fill them with desirable behaviour.

Thank you very much for sharing all these valuable observations. I will be right back at your feedback when I have a bit more time for it.

[Malte]

I updated the plugin, and re-packaged it as RC5. Would be great if you could deinstall your previously installed version and install this new one from scratch to check if the errors still occure.

I tried to implement all your proposals regarding wording and tried also to address some of the issues you reported (though into the blue).

Direct Download Link to "notetaker@….0-RC5" is.
​https://github.com/downloads/mukil/lookmarker-deepamehta.org/notetaker@deepamehta.org-1.0-RC5.xpi

Issues addressed:

• "prompt does not appear" after pressing "Notice". That is fixed. prompt to give your "note" a title will always pop-up.
• "statsLusabel is undefined", which should just appear in 3.6.x where no add-on bar is present yet, is handled properly. though for displaying user notifications on "operation status executed by the plugin" there is and will be no replacement for 3.6.x users
• "at fist try nothing happens", for now I suspect this is related to one of the 2 issues fixed now

Issues which weren`t addressed:

• "Note is related to URL instead of a Web Resource" this issue is pending and might be fixed in RC6 or addressed at a later stage of development.

And thanks again for testing, reporting and your valueable feedback!

[Malte]

Issues also addressed

• updated version number to reflect the actual current state of developmet

Issues which might be addressed of RC5:

• fixing an empty toolbar, reported on mac os and firefox 3.6.x

Issues not addressed yet:

• fixing website description, making clear that a "deepamehta" installation needs to be running _before_ pressing "Notice" from the context menu or the "Notice" icon in the nav-bar/add-on bar.

[jri]

Milestone Launch Website deleted