MDN/MDN 2014 Archives
The Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) is a web development resource that anyone can contribute to. With your help, we hope to build resources for a better web, regardless of brand, browser or platform. The site has also been known by its project name, "Devmo" (short for "DEVeloper.Mozilla.Org"), or Mozilla Developer Center (MDC). You can learn more about the history of MDN on the About MDN page.
Objectives of MDN
- Support the Mozilla Mission by surfacing & creating relevant content and resources for developers
- Engage the developer community across technologies and grow Mozilla contribution
- MDN is the top search result & most trafficked web developer resource site
Join the Community
The documentation community is a group, largely comprised of volunteers, with the goal of providing useful documentation to users of Mozilla products and the web in general. We are always happy to help new writers and editors get involved and encourage everyone to participate in helping to make this documentation the best it can be.
- Introduce yourself!
- Join our documentation mailing list.
- Hop in our IRC channel: #mdn on irc.mozilla.org. New to IRC? We have a great guide on getting started with IRC.
- Join our community meetings:
- Time: Every other Wednesday at 10am Pacific time.
- Place: #mdn
- Agenda & minutes
- Check our events calendar.
- Meet us at one of our Doc Sprints.
- We also have a Google Group & Web feed
- MDN documentation is coordinated and driven by Topic Drivers, who are good resources to contact if you are looking for information about or to contribute to a specific topic on the MDN.
- You can also organize an event for MDN.
What Can I Do On MDN?
Edit existing content
- See an error or typo? You can fix it! Since MDN is a wiki, anyone can edit and add content.
- To get started, login (or create an account) and then just click Edit on the article you want to edit & start editing the content. Make sure to save your changes.
- For more information, see the Getting Started Guide
Tag content for review or edits
Not ready to edit the content yet? You also can use tags to flag problems.
- Here are some of the tags we use, and their meanings:
- NeedsMarkupWork: the formatting is not standard or not consistent with other pages.
- NeedsExample: needs one or more illustrative code examples of the item documented.
- NeedsContent: the item is incomplete and needs to be filled out.
- NeedsJSVersion: needs information about the version of JavaScript and EcmaScript this item first appears in.
- NeedsBrowserCompatibility: needs a browser compatibility table or needs the table filled out.
- MakeBrowserAgnostic: the article is written with a focus on Gecko, when it is actually about a standard function or feature, which should be rewritten to be generic.
To add tags to content:
- Login to MDN.
- Click Edit to enter editing mode.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page.
- In the Tags box, type the tag that you want to add. Tags can contain spaces.
- Press Enter to accept the tag.
- Click Save Changes when you are done.
Write new content
- You are encouraged to write new articles on whatever topics we currently cover in the wiki. New content can be as simple as a one page tip or as complex as a book-length programming guide or reference. The amount of new content you contribute is entirely up to you.
- Please review the Writer's Guide for more information on how to write on MDN.
- The Documentation Wish List provides some ideas of content we would love to see added to the MDN.
- Bugzilla bugs that require documentation are tagged with the dev-doc-needed keyword. Please review the Tracking documentation issues page to see how to use Bugzilla to find articles to write.
Translate Content
- Want to help us translate the MDN into other languages? Great! Follow these simple steps to get started.
- Sign or or create an account on MDN (by clicking on sign in near the top-right of the screen).
- Go to the article that you want to translate.
- Click Languages near the top-right of the screen.
- Choose the language you want to translate to, or click Add translation.
- Write your translation and save!
- Have a Localization question or project? Contact the localization leads
Open a bug
Notice a problem? Have an idea for a new feature? Please share your thoughts on Bugzilla.
State OF MDN
Monthly report on what is happening on MDN - projects, metrics, SEO and other information
2014
- State of MDN - May 2014
- State of MDN - April 2014
- State of MDN - March 2014
- State of MDN - February 2014
- State of MDN - January 2014
2013
- State of MDN- December 2013
- State of MDN- November 2013
- State of MDN- October 2013
- State of MDN- September 2013
- State of MDN- July 2013
- State of MDN - June 2013
- State of MDN - May 2013
- State of MDN April, 2013 - moving to monthly rather than bi-weekly reports
- State of MDN through April 15, 2013
- State of MDN - March 1-15, 2013
- State of MDN - February 2013
Team Meetings
- MDN writer staff meetings are held biweekly. While these are employee-only meetings, the notes are published here afterward.
- In-Person MDN staff meeting was held January 20 & @1 in the San Francisco office. While this was a paid-staff only meeting, the notes are published on the wiki and shared through email.
Project-specific docs meetings
- WebAPI documentation meetings are held every Friday at 9 AM Pacific time.
MDN Projects
Current Projects
WebAPI Documentation
- 2013 WebAPI documentation and its counter part on MDN: WebAPI doc status
Learning Area
- The MDN Learning Area project aims to build content and features dedicated to beginners by the end of 2014.
Badges
- Proposal for Badges on MDN, being driven by Janet, Florian, Christie & Robert
Improving compatibility tables
- Proposal to improve MDN's compatibility tables, proposed by Jeremie and Daniel Buchner
GitHub Integration
- Proposal for what GitHub integration might look like.
Proposed Projects
Personal Dashboard
- Proposal to build a Personal dashboard on MDN; this is a customizable "home" page for users that provides key information about things they care about on MDN.
Metrics
- Proposal for Metrics on MDN, being managed by groovecoder
Blackhole Integration
- Project to integrate MDN with Blackhole (Mozillians) project
Working Sample Code
- Proposal for JSFiddle-like sample code on every page that you can download, tweak, run "out of the box"
Social Features
Implement social features on the site to promote collaboration and community
Product versioning
- Proposal to support product versioning, proposed by Will
Git backend for wiki
- Proposal for migrating to Git as the data backend for the wiki, proposed by lorchard
Page building blocks
- Proposed building blocks for the page templates and building blocks project requirement.
Accessibility Review
- proposed by teoli
Mobile/Tablet & Offline Experience for MDN
- From community feedback during MDN redesign
Mozilla Hacks Localization
- Proposal for Mozilla Hacks Localization, being managed by Robert Nyman
StackOverflow widgets
- Proposal to add topical StackOverFlow widgets to MDN pages, proposed by by [[User:Robnyman|Robert Nyman] & Ali
Filtering UI for MDN Seach / "Command & Query"
- Proposal to finish and improve our in-progress work for implementing a filter UI to the search field on MDN, proposed by Holly & Jannis
Completed Projects
MDN Redesign
- Large project aimed at rebranding & redesigning MDN to better serve developers as users and contributors.
Localization dashboard
- The dashboard localization dashboard will make it easier for our localization teams to do their work.
Google Summer of Code
- The Mozilla Developer Network team will be hosting a Google Summer of Code this summer. The project will center around building a Localization Dashboard to track localization status and help localizers find articles that need to be updated.
- For more information, please see our Google Summer of Code 2013 page.
Development
The MDN wiki is on the Kuma platform that is based on django and was launched on August 3, 2012. There is ongoing development to improve the platform and developer/writer experience on the MDN.
Interested in our development plans, development process, and more? Please see the Development page.
User & Developer Resources
- Getting Started on MDN
- Writers Guide
- Page Naming Guide
- Localization
Archived Content
- Kuma 1.0 Release otherwise known as MDN 2.0
- MDN 1.0 Website Spec
- MDN 1.0 PRD
- Roadmap for 2010 Presentation
- 2010 Roadmap