i believe tips may be in order, in a civil world (i would but i don't use it)

Most extensions that I used back when I was a Firefoxer asked kindly for donations. I only ever gave money for one extension (that one that looked up prices for books on multiple sites). So yeah, I think it's fine to suggest a donation, it certainly shouldn't be an expecation though.

I'd say there's no harm in asking. A lot of people take the nice work that folks do for granted, and it's in a good spirit of generosity when folks improve our applications out of love and personal interest, but love doesn't buy magic keyboards. If someone was offended at being asked for money in a polite way that they were free to decline, I'd laugh at them.

i will put a portrait of your pet on a lovely custom made pillow for a computer tablet.
or your mom for an OSX upgrade.
will make her thinner or fatter for free and even remove the appearance of fine lines and blemishes.

if iconomy ever checks her email, she can freely distribute samples.

I don't think it's bad form, ortho, but I wouldn't expect more than about $7 all told.

i'm not comfortable with putting a donation button up for myself but i'm sorely tempted, especially of late.

i remember in the 90's being amazed at what strangers would sent people off their wishlists

I personally am grateful for all the extensions that have been released and am aware of how much work it can be to keep them compatible with new releases (especially parallel versions) and to provide multiple language support, which many do. And am also aware of how thankless a task it can be. The whining by users on addons.mozilla.org is unbelievable: "it's broken!", "where's the update for 1.6alpha", etc.

I'm now inspired me to see if any of the extensions I use which I consider indispensible are asking for donations and toss them a couple a couple of bucks.

I can't remember which extension it was but the author of one of the ones I use regularly wouldn't release a v1.5 upgrade until he'd been donated $100. He caught a lot of flack for it that I don't think he deserved. Someone ended up doing the work for the update and emailing it to him. To his credit did release the updated version even though he'd only been donated maybe $30 at the time.

So sure, ask, but don't expect much. You won't be stocking the villa in the South of France with supermodels based on proceeds from your Firefox extension tip jar. But I don't think it's bad form to ask.

In general, the update for 1.5 just means changing max version number in the install.rdf.

For my stuff, I had orginally made max version very high, but the mozilla site doesn't accept max versions greater than FF's actual max version.

For most, yup, just upping max version did the trick but some extensions really stopped working (greasemonkey comes to mind)(and adblock but I think that was because of a coincident release of Flash 8).

And BTW, it was Flat Bookmark Editting's author that was asking for $100. And, also, BTW, only one of the extensions (or themes) I have currently installed asks for donations. I sent them $2 via PayPal. It'll hardly put a dent in their villa's supermodel restocking bills but it's the thought that counts.

Make sure you let them know you didn't actually write the extensions and are just collecting for "the real author."

I'd donate. (I'm having trouble installing the new version of Metafilthy, but my emails to the address in your profile get bounced back.)

i'd ask for tips.

By all means do put up a donations page. But don't expect much. Make it obvious and easy to get to but not intrusive or annoying.

It might even help more than it harms if you put up a link or pic of what you really want to buy with the donations. It's a concrete end goal, not a tip jar slush fund. That seems to appeal to people, at least, it appeals to me.

"Hey, check it out. This is the tool I like to use to make my stuff. Some like it, some hate it, but I love it. Unfortunately, mine broke, and they don't make them anymore."

Someone may even have one of those they'd just rather donate to you directly. You never know.

I remember eyeballing those keyboards. Fancy pants nifty concept. I take it you never figured out what was wrong with it? Did you try it on other computers with the drivers properly installed?

I have an all-metal clicky IBM model M with some sticky keys if you're interested. ;) It's great for fighting off bears with.

The profile address is long out of date. Use the address on the metafilthy page.

Use metafilthy@realauthor'sname, as Alex Reynolds points out. (Drama queen.) ;) (The full address is on the metafilthy page.)

(I probably won't ask for donations for metafilthy, as it has only about 200 users; I'll ask for my other extension, which has about 10000 users.)


loquacious: at best, the keyboard's firmware is corrupt, corrupt enough it won't accept a firmware update. at worst, the pcb that runs the USB is just fried.

In any case, it doesn't respond to USB queries. And the thing was such a joy to use. I was as if one were communicating directly with the PC.

How do you like the Touchstream? Looks strange to me.

if iconomy ever checks her email, she can freely distribute samples.

ethylene, samples of what now? I just checked my mail and I don't see no steenkin' samples!

I love it. It's strange because there's no tactile feedback. But there's also no force required to "press" the keys. Very easy to type then.