Closed Bug 1240785 Opened 8 years ago Closed 7 years ago

Convert required feature.slug to optional feature.aliases

Categories

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: BrowserCompat, defect)

All
Other
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: jwhitlock, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: in-triage, Whiteboard: [bc:infra][bc:milestone=bicycle])

What feature should be changed? Please provide the URL of the feature if possible.
==================================================================================
Features has a required slug attribute, that is supposed to be a unique, human friendly alternate name for a feature [1].  However, there is no agreement on an automatic format for these slugs [2], which is required for bulk import of features if slugs are write-once.

As part of the discussion, it was decided that
1) UUIDs should be used to uniquely identify resources [3],
2) MDN should store a UUID on the Document [4],
3) Feature UUIDs should match the MDN page

In the default case (compatibility information on an MDN reference page), the MDN UUID would match the BC Feature UUID, and KumaScript with no parameters could be used to place the specification and compatibility tables.

Other pages, such as tutorial pages [5] or layout tests [6] need to display compatibility information that "lives" on a different reference page. For this case, an identifier is needed. The UUID may be used, or an "alias" could be created, so that a page has a friendly name.


[1] http://browsercompat.readthedocs.org/en/latest/v1/resources.html#features
[2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1078699#c2
[3] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1230306
[4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1240774
[5] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/API/WebRTC/Peer-to-peer_communications_with_WebRTC
[6] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/User:stephaniehobson:code

What problems would this solve?
===============================
It would be difficult to visually verify the correct feature by UUID.

Who would use this?
===================
Writers creating tutorial pages. 3rd Party tool creators trying to link BC data to other data sources, like caniuse [7], using aliases like "caniuse:audio" to say "This feature matches the one caniuse calls 'audio'".

[7] https://github.com/fyrd/caniuse

What would users see?
=====================
In the page source, they would see a macro like:

{{CompatibilityTable('web-css-float')}}

instead of:

{{CompatibilityTable('3B227DA4-BEC6-11E5-A4FC-E0266D37453F')}}

In the contribution interface, contributors would have the option of creating a unique alias for a feature.

What would users do? What would happen as a result?
===================================================
Writers would create aliases as needed for creating tutorials

Is there anything else we should know?
======================================
feature.slugs will probably be dropped before aliases are added.

Slugs may still be used in cases like browser.slug, where the slug is used to for CSS rules and icon names.

Bug 1230597 suggests a permission for changing slugs, which might also cover adding aliases.
Blocks: 996570
Mentor: jwhitlock
Depends on: 1230597
Whiteboard: [specification][type:change] → [bc:infra][bc:milestone=bicycle]
Mentor: jwhitlock
The BrowserCompat project is canceled.  See https://github.com/mdn/browsercompat for current effort. Bulk status change includes the random word TEMPOTHRONE.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 7 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Product: developer.mozilla.org → developer.mozilla.org Graveyard
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