When searching for a documentation system to use for Ubiquity, we looked at a number of tools. None of them particularly satisfied me; all the ones I saw required a build step to convert raw source code into formatted documentation, and I wasn’t very pleased with the typography of the generated content—though obviously the aesthetics were customizable through CSS, none of the default stylesheets left me dying to read the documentation I created. ... Read more

I’ve just released the first preview release of Ubiquity 0.2, which implements some of the functionality outlined in the Ubiquity 0.2 Architecture Proposal. In particular, we now have support for something called Feed Plugins, which makes it possible for Ubiquity to draw from a much wider range of functionality: imagine, for instance, if end-users saw Greasemonkey and CoScripter scripts no differently from standard Ubiquity command feeds, and used the exact same interface to subscribe to and use functionality that’s been implemented with any number of web technologies. ... Read more

Much simpler than the one for 0.1.3. Read more about this architecture proposal at Ubiquity 0.2 Design: UI and Security Extensibility, and feel free edit the document or join in the conversation on ubiquity-core!

To prepare for some of the upcoming changes to Ubiquity, I took some time this morning to document the architecture of what’s about to be released as Ubiquity 0.1.3: The full prose to go with the above diagram is on the wiki. The tool I used to make the above diagram is called OmniGraffle, and has been recommended to me over the past few years by most of my friends who use Macs. ... Read more

We’re currently working on Ubiquity 0.1.3, a release that improves Ubiquity’s responsiveness and adds skinning support. In preparation for this, I’ve just released the first Ubiquity 0.1.3 Release Candidate. Please feel free to download it—you’ll automatically be upgraded to each new release candidate as it becomes available, as well as the final 0.1.3 release. Any bugs that you can report either to our bug database or our mailing list would be much appreciated. ... Read more

Mike Beltzner recently wrote an excellent blog post that puts the newly-released Firefox China Edition in a cultural context: I'm used to a very search-based culture, and was shocked to discover that search - while still important - was a secondary task for all of my Chinese colleagues. Their normal pattern would be to first visit an authoritative source (a portal of some form, either a media hub, a news site, or a topic-oriented site like one for music) and then drill into the information presented. ... Read more

We discussed at the first Ubiquity planning meeting that we need to come up with and implement a security model for the next release, so I thought I’d write down a few thoughts I’ve been having about it. I don’t consider myself a security expert by any stretch of the imagination, though, so any suggestions or corrections are more than welcome. Firstly, as noted in the meeting notes, the notion of a security model being discussed here is separate from, but supporting of, the kind of social “web of trust” based model that I’ve written about before. ... Read more

This weekend I represented Mozilla at the >play Expo at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and the San Francisco Green Festival. This was the first time I’d ever represented Mozilla at a public event, so it was quite a learning experience. It was also fun trying to get an idea of what an individual was interested in and connecting it with something relevant about Mozilla. The >play Expo ... Read more

Yesterday we had our first public Ubiquity planning meeting. What made this meeting particularly interesting for me was the fact that we were trying something a little different from most standard Mozilla project meetings I’ve attended. Generally, project meetings consist of one group of people who are in the same room together and can communicate very efficiently while all the folks calling-in can barely hear them, dramatically increasing their barrier to participation. ... Read more

Last night we held a really fun Labs Night at Mozilla’s Building K in Mountain View, California. The Thunderbird team was here for their work week, some folks from Seedcamp dropped in, and Dion and Ben of the Ajaxian and the new Mozilla Developer Tools Lab were all here, which made for a night of innovative presentations that got lots of interesting conversations started. The evening started out with Jono presenting a quick overview of all the currently active Labs projects while wearing a large sombrero. ... Read more