Versioning and time management

[ehume]

Two issues:

First, how shall I version themes going forward? Through Fx 4 and 5, I had my theme version track the Firefox version. KISS rule. When the devs moved to quarterly though I left my themes. There was a fair amount of bitrot. I updated them to a version 6, but what of the future? Every three months or so they will bump the Fx version -- to 15, 16, etc. Should I go 6.1, 6.2, etc.? Or go to 15, 16, etc? Suggestions are welcome.

Second, I don't want to spend my spare time checking resources to see what new disaster the devs have hatched. I have moved on to other hobbies now: many studies on OCN (see my sig), reviews on Overclockers and my first on Vortez.net, soon to be published weblished(?). I really don't have time to be checking all the time. So, is there a concise, non-Bugzilla cumulative place to see the upcoming changes? A cumulative place means I'd only have to check it four times a year.

Bonus issue: it turns out my themes don't code for the Developers section. I mean, who would code pages using a non-default theme, other than the theme's author? But here again, I think I may have missed some css files. Although I have seen notes on changes, I have not seen anyone discuss the files added to Fx, and where . . .

[patrickjdempsey]

The Nightly Theme Changes thread has the complete documentation, although diffing omni.ja is really the only way to see for sure what they've changed. The Devtools stuff seems impossible to support. It's basically been constantly changing for the last 8 versions or so with no end in sight, just copy that stuff from the default theme and be done with it.

You might consider switching to Sharebird's "light weight" theme platform: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1472225&hilit=+sharebird+lite+theme

Basically, it works just like a userChrome.css hack. Unfortunately, it means you have to hack directly against some really really strange code in the default theme, some of which is just monstrous. The good news is that some of that mess may be getting simpler if they drop tabs on bottom support.

[ehume]

The Devtools stuff seems impossible to support. It's basically been constantly changing for the last 8 versions or so with no end in sight, just copy that stuff from the default theme and be done with it.

Thanks.

[KLB]

I agree with Patrick, just copy the default devtools stuff over to your theme and don't bother with customizing more than to make it work right in your themes for now. I assume the devtools stuff will stabilize out eventually and when it does folks can make more of an effort to start styling them to blend with themes better.

Another piece of advice I have is to cut off all support for FF versions older than FF10. FF10 is the extended release version so Mozilla will be supporting it until this coming spring so it is a good idea for themes to maintain support for it as well. Users really shouldn't be using versions of FF older than v10.

[patrickjdempsey]

Oh, and for some inexplicable reason, Mozilla has put a ton of the styling for devtools stuff into browser.css, so make sure you copy and paste the last 1/6th of the default theme browser.css over to your theme. For sanity you can put this into a separate file and load it using @import.

[KLB]

I had a chat with FF devs about why so much Dev Tool stuff was in the browser.css and they said it wasn't ideal, but it was the lessor of two evils.

[patrickjdempsey]

@import worked just fine in my theme. Heck, I even split off the urlbar and tabbrowser stuff like it used to be ages ago. Saving that nanosecond on loading time isn't worth going insane IMO.

[ehume]

I like the idea of a separate file and @import. I guess I have to find the devtools stuff. Is it all in browser.css? I was going to Inspect Here so I could see what files I need to transfer.

BTW -- When's Fx 15?

[KLB]

I like the idea of a separate file and @import. I guess I have to find the devtools stuff. Is it all in browser.css? I was going to Inspect Here so I could see what files I need to transfer.

BTW -- When's Fx 15?

FF15 release is scheduled for Aug 28th
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases

[ehume]

Thanks.

I still haven't had any suggestions on versioning.

I'm at Aeon, Scribblies, Halloween 6 now. Version 5 was more than a year ago. Do I jump to theme version 15 to match Fx? Go to 6.1? Let it slide, incrementing compatibility ranges until bitrot sets in again, and only then go to 7?

[patrickjdempsey]

I say version however you want. It's a number that only means anything to you anyway. I've seen some addons starting to follow the Firefox version, which I suppose makes sense since Mozilla has removed version compatibility from addons.mozilla.org documentation.

Devtools stuff is in two locations: some of the CSS is in browser.css and the rest of it is in the devtools folder. If you copy and paste those two sets you should be good to go.

[David.Vincent]

Another piece of advice I have is to cut off all support for FF versions older than FF10. FF10 is the extended release version so Mozilla will be supporting it until this coming spring so it is a good idea for themes to maintain support for it as well. Users really shouldn't be using versions of FF older than v10.

I have removed support before FF12. And for each new version of FF that will come, I will remove an older version (support for FF12 will be removed after 28 august for my theme). I think that we must follow FF development and we must force users to upgrade FF for security. Our themes are completly different from the default theme and we can give to users the same options that it was with older version (example : tabs below the urlbar is only 4-5 lines of code into a theme companion). Devtool support for all FF version until FF10 increase our themes.

[patrickjdempsey]

I run version ESR10 at work because it's a W2K machine. I bet there's more than a trivial number of users in that situation. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do when ESR17 is released... probably just disable updates until something better comes along.