Bit Stampede

One of our initiatives on the Mozilla Developer Network’s documentation wiki is to improve browser agnosticism. That is, to ensure that where appropriate, our open web documentation is just as useful for web developers using other browsers as it is for those using Firefox. A lot of our documentation is currently very Firefox-oriented, even when it’s not necessary.

Consider this, for example:

Here we see a big banner about how this method of the DOM Element object was introduced in Gecko 1.9.1. However, it’s actually a standard DOM method. This banner should go away, and the text should be updated wherever necessary to remove any Firefox-specific discussion.

In addition, the article should have our standard browser compatibility table at the bottom. This table provides information about which releases of all the major browsers introduced support for the feature.

I’ve updated this article now so it looks the way it’s supposed to, as an example of what it ought to look like.

Noting introduction of sub-features

Some features are fairly complex; for example, the HTML <input> element has evolved over time, with the addition of new attributes and new possible values for many of them. This is where adding additional rows to the browser compatibility table comes into play. Let’s look at a few rows from the compatibility table for <input>:

Here we see multiple table rows, each for a given named feature of the element being documented. In the case of Firefox, we see that type=color isn’t implemented yet, and we used {{unimplemented_inline(547004)}} to include a link to the corresponding bug. We also have the WebKitBug template for linking to WebKit bugs, and should add an unimplemented_webkit_inline or similar for creating Unimplemented badges that link to WebKit bugs, but haven’t done so yet.

Browser version-specific notes

Sometimes, you simply have to note browser-specific stuff, even in open web documentation. This should usually be done in the “Browser compatibility” section, with a subsection added for each browser that needs a note. For example, the browser compatibility section on the main WebSockets page has a subsection entitled “Gecko notes,” which covers Gecko-specific issues related to WebSockets, such as the fact that the constructor is prefixed.

If you do need to include browser-specific content in the middle of article text, try to put it in a call-out box or note box instead of just throwing it into the body text of the article.

The future

As we continue to build our Kuma, our new wiki platform for MDN documentation, we’re keeping browser agnosticism for documentation in mind. We have features planned to make it easier to call out browser differences and browser specific features, and to help readers filter the content based on their interests.

When in doubt… ask!

While updating or writing open web documentation, if you run into something that you’re not sure how to handle, please feel free to pop into #devmo on IRC, or to drop email to me, and ask for help. All of our happy, helpful documentation gnomes live to serve.

Here are today’s Wiki Wednesday articles! If you know about these topics, please try to find a few minutes to look over these articles that are marked as needing technical intervention and see if you can fix them up. You can do so either by logging into the wiki and editing the articles directly, or by emailing your notes, sample code, or feedback to mdnwiki@mozilla.org.

Contributors to Wiki Wednesday will get recognition in next week’s Wiki Wednesday announcement. Thanks in advance for your help!

JavaScript

Thanks to BYK for contributing last week.

• Writing JavaScript for XHTML
• Deprecated Features
• Closures

SpiderMonkey

• How to embed the JavaScript engine
• Creating JavaScript tests
• Running Automated JavaScript Tests

Developing Mozilla

Thanks to Neil Rashbrook for contributing last week.

• Debugging memory leaks
• Building a Mozilla Distribution
• Mozilla build FAQ

Extensions

Thanks to John J. Barton and Ms2ger for contributing last week.

• Post data to window
• XPCOM category image-sniffing-services
• Extension etiquette

XUL

Thanks to John J. Barton and Ms2ger for contributing last week.

• Using the Editor from XUL
• Troubleshooting preference windows
• Writing Efficient CSS for use in the Mozilla UI

XPCOM

Thanks to Neil Rashbrook for contributing last week.

• nsICommandController
• nsISelection2
• Creating Custom Firefox Extensions with the Mozilla Build System

Interfaces

• nsIWinAccessNode
• nsISelectionImageService
• IAccessibleRelation

Plugins

• URLs
• NPN_RequestRead
• Gecko Plugin API Reference

CSS

Thanks to stopsatgreen and Florian Scholz for contributing last week.

• percentage
• content
• Visual

SVG

Thanks to Jeremie Patonnier for contributing last week.

• max
• style
• height

HTML

• Focus management in HTML
• menu
• HTMLTableColElement

DOM

Thanks to BYK for contributing last week.

• Midas
• HTMLTableCaptionElement
• HTMLQuoteElement

The first quarter 2011 Mozilla documentation sprint starts tomorrow (that is, Friday, January 28).  We have a nice list of ideas for things people can help with, including some that are great for non-writers to work on, such as adding examples to the CSS Reference and the HTML Element Reference. Those would be fun projects for people for whom CSS and HTML are their primary language, rather than English.

This will be a virtual sprint, with the participants chatting in the #devmo IRC channel on irc.mozilla.org. We encourage anyone and everyone to pitch in and contribute in their own way. We’ll be pounding away on documentation both Friday and Saturday. It’s going to be great fun, and I hope to “see” you there!