Mozilla Add-ons Site Now with Add-on Verification Suite
After adding tagging functionality for Firefox add-ons last month, the Mozilla Foundation has now announced that work on the first revision of the add-on verification suite is complete and consequently it has gone live on the add-ons site. The implementation of this verification suite means that an automated tool will examine add-ons for add-on authors and editors. The tool will look for problems affecting the add-on and will recommend fixes.
The Mozilla Add-ons team explains how a developer can access the verification suite and how it works: “Log in to your developer control panel and choose “Versions and Files” for one of your add-ons. Find the version you want to analyze and click “No Test Results.” This takes you to the testing screen. After a brief analysis, a summary is displayed at the top of the page with what tests were run and their results. If you see all green check marks, congratulations! Your add-on has passed the verification suite’s current set of tests.”
That’s the happy case, when everything checks out to be OK – but that does not happen every time. The add-on verification suite will sometimes display a warning or error. In this case you must scroll down to where the detailed error report is presented; a help link to a page where the test is presented in detail is also available.
The thing to keep in mind though is that even though the add-on verification suite detects a problem, this may be the result of a false positive – your add-on may be okay, it’s just the verification suite asking you to double check that issue.
The Mozilla Add-ons team again: “Many tests are written to catch a broad number of cases and may display false positives. Seeing warnings in the add-on analysis does not necessarily mean your add-on has problems – it’s simply raising a flag to double check that area. Over the next few months we’ll refine the tool to prevent false positives and add additional tests.”
The Mozilla Add-ons team explains how a developer can access the verification suite and how it works: “Log in to your developer control panel and choose “Versions and Files” for one of your add-ons. Find the version you want to analyze and click “No Test Results.” This takes you to the testing screen. After a brief analysis, a summary is displayed at the top of the page with what tests were run and their results. If you see all green check marks, congratulations! Your add-on has passed the verification suite’s current set of tests.”
That’s the happy case, when everything checks out to be OK – but that does not happen every time. The add-on verification suite will sometimes display a warning or error. In this case you must scroll down to where the detailed error report is presented; a help link to a page where the test is presented in detail is also available.
The thing to keep in mind though is that even though the add-on verification suite detects a problem, this may be the result of a false positive – your add-on may be okay, it’s just the verification suite asking you to double check that issue.
The Mozilla Add-ons team again: “Many tests are written to catch a broad number of cases and may display false positives. Seeing warnings in the add-on analysis does not necessarily mean your add-on has problems – it’s simply raising a flag to double check that area. Over the next few months we’ll refine the tool to prevent false positives and add additional tests.”
