Calling all Add-On developers and would-be-Add-On developers! The QA Companion Add-On could use your help!
Zach Lipton and Ben Hsieh created the QA Companion Add-On. This is an extension that sits in a little window outside Firefox or Thunderbird and helps you to run litmus tests against the application. It has helped hundreds of people when testing Firefox, and has become a central part of our QA Test Day events.
Both Zach and Ben are students and they’re busy with school, so maintaining the Add-On has fallen to me. I can keep up with the maintenance on this, but that’s really not enough. The QA Companion has great potential, lots of people have thought about ways to do more interesting mash-ups with it, including integrating some of the Nightly Tester Tool Functionality, integrating Mozmill automation UI etc. If we’re really going to take this little tool to the next level, then I can’t do it all by myself.
I’m asking for volunteers. If you’ve always wanted to work on an Add-On, but it seemed like too big of an undertaking, this is a great opportunity. The base code is already written, and it’s all pretty straightforward. I’ll help you understand its ins and outs and will help you with the planning, new features, bug fixes, and ongoing maintenance. Together, we can design a new direction for the tool and make it a really useful item for all the testers out there in Mozilla Land.
So often, getting involved with the Mozilla Project is like a scary leap into the dark water of the deep end of a pool. This time, with a solid base of code, an installed base of users, and a willing mentor, you have a unique opportunity to step into the shallow end, and get deeper as you ramp up your skills.
Reply to this thread if you’re interested. I look forward to working with you. I’m on IRC as ctalbert (irc.mozilla.org, channel #qa).
I could help with testing, but am not really much of a dev.
I’d be interested in helping out. You can reach me at: http://briks.si/kontakt/. Let me know what needs to be done and I will see if I have time (no guarantees).
@Tyler and Brian:
Awesome! I’m happy to hear from you both. I will start a wiki page so we can brainstorm on ways to make the tool better and so we can prioritize which bugs to fix first.
In the meantime, I suggest that you both download the current version and get a feel for it.
You can grab it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5428
I would, but it is not compatible with the Trunk. I will add it to my branch version, but if you will start active development, it would be nice for it to be compatible with the current trunk version. based on my work on bmo, that is where a lot of work needs to be done, with the trunk.
@Tyler, true. I updated it to work against trunk Firefox.
Thank you.
nice thread..