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We have some decisions to make regarding this page. In case you're
not sure what I'm talking about, this is the page:<br>
<br>
<img moz-do-not-send="true" src="https://i.imgur.com/nhspZG3.png"
alt="" width="1062" height="464"><br>
<br>
This is a remote page loaded from ATN. Unfortunately, it's my
understanding that the ability to load remote content in the Add-ons
Manager is slated for removal. Firefox has already removed it, and
the supporting code will be removed in <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1337627">Bug
1337627</a>.<br>
<br>
It was replaced with <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1540173">an
in-client discovery pane</a> that is very basic. You can see it in
any modern version of Firefox, but it's essentially a somewhat
random list of 7 themes or extensions. I believe it pulls these from
the API. I think we may be able to use this code with minimal
changes, since we have the same API, but I haven't been able to
figure out how to test that, a couple of attempts to change prefs
according to Geoff's instructions didn't seem to work.<br>
<br>
However, if we do that, it significantly raises the priority of <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=826196">adding
back/forward buttons for tabs</a>. Extension search, and the "Find
More Add-ons" button link directly to the website, and the website
is more important with a minimalist discovery pane. But while
Firefox works great here since it has the regular browser UI, the
navigation experience is poor in Thunderbird.<br>
<br>
We also need to decide whether to use the built-in Discovery Pane,
or somehow preserve the ability to load remote content. There are
many factors that affect this, I think the most important are:<br>
<ol>
<li>How much work is it to use the built-in Firefox discovery
pane?</li>
<li>How much work is it to preserve remote content loading
capability?</li>
<li>Can we modify the built-in discovery pane, change text, or
change the layout relatively easily, or is it difficult?</li>
<li>Which provides the better experience for users?</li>
<li>Are the security implications of loading remote content in
this part of Thunderbird as relevant to us as they were for
Firefox?</li>
</ol>
<p>It would be better to figure out which direction we want to go
earlier than later. It doesn't make sense to spend time designing
and fully rewriting this page if we aren't going to use it, and
similarly we need to make sure that we have the Thunderbird
capability to load it if we decide to keep it remote.<br>
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