35552 - HOWTOs

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Developer Documentation Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Christopher Blizzard (:blizzard)]

From Chris Waterson's email:

As we'd discussed in our meeting today, here's a first cut at some of
the HOWTO documents that might be nice to have. Some (e.g., build
instructions) already exist, but might get better visibility if included
directly into the "HOWTO hierarchy".

HOWTO...

. fix memory leaks using Purify, bloaty, and the refcount balancer
. build on win32/mac/unix
. write an RDF datasource
. use XBL to create a new widget
. write a XUL application
. write an XPCOM component using C++ or JS
. write a new protocol handler (e.g., finger)
. write a new content viewer (e.g., FTP directory viewer)
. write a new stream converter
. embed gecko into an application
. skin a component (including, designing UI for skinnability)
. write an XPInstall script
. port the XPTCall glue code to a new architecture
. write a dynamic component overlay (a la AIM and security of old)
. profile mozilla
. make a sidebar panel
. write a "new"-style plugin
. write a signed script (someday!)
. file a bug
. get in touch with the right developers
. localize a component, use stringbundles
. write a new image file format handler
. extend layout (a la SVG and MathML)
. embed a new scripting language

I vote for starting a page at http://www.mozilla.org/HOWTO/

Comment 1

[Chris Waterson]

initial revision checked in to html/HOWTO/index.html. All the links are dead.

Comment 2

[Blake Ross]

*spam* changing qa contact from [e-mail] to me ([e-mail]) 
on 121 open or resolved (but not verified) bugs.  sorry for the spam everybody, 
but most of these bugs would just remain dormant and not checked by QA 
otherwise.  I'm not sure how so many bugs have nobody as their QA contact, but 
I suspect this is the fault of some sort of bugzilla corruption that happened 
at some point (most of these bugs are in the 20000-26000 range, and I don't see 
where in the activity log that QA contact explicitly changed to 
[e-mail])

Anyways, sorry again for spam.  If you really get annoyed, I'm usually 
available in #mozilla on IRC for torture.

Comment 3

[Blake Ross]

QA assigning Mozilla Developer bugs back to [e-mail] (not critical to 
be checked by outside QA contact)

Comment 4

[James Cox]

accepting QA for mozilla developer docs.

some of these bugs have been around for a _long_ time. Reporters, would you
please review the bugs, see if the issues have been resolved, and close bugs
appropriately.

I will do a full review of all bugs not touched in one week (8th April). 

Thanks.

</spam>

Comment 5

[speralta]

This is a Mini-Howto that I have been working on which describes some simple
administrative tasks such as how to patch and optimize a source distribution of
Mozilla for use in a Linux/X desktop environment.   I can provide sgml or xml
docbook source if that is desirable.

Regards,

Salvador Peralta
[e-mail]

Comment 6

[speralta]

URL for HOWTO mentioned above is is www.willamette.edu/~speralta/tldp/mozilla

Comment 7

[Anne (:annevk)]

Ah, this is the place were /HOWTO/ is created. It is totally out of date. I
suggest we remove it from the server and put a 410 for that file.

Comment 8

[fantasai]

Removing things from the server and replacing them with a 410 error sounds like
a fundamentally bad idea. Wouldn't it make more sense to /update/ the doc and make
it more useful rather than turning it into a broken link?

Comment 9

[speralta]

I agree with fantasai.  My own document is horribly out of date, but there is
enough useful information in the HOWTO section on the Mozilla.org web site to
justify keeping it around rather than scrapping it.

Comment 10

[Anne (:annevk)]

Perhaps. I think I agree. However, currently there is no way of finding such
directories other than having a CVS account and doing a checkout (that's the way
I found this and various interesting articles). (That is probably part of the
larger problem at mozilla.org.)

I wonder though, how much useful 'howto' files do we have? How useful is it to
categorize documents in 'howto'?

If we continue with this and someone takes this documents and updates it (I'm
willing to make it match the style/markup guide) I suggest we lowercase the
directory or move it to somewhere else, like /tutorial/.

Comment 11

[fantasai]

I agree with lower-casing it.

The real usefulness of this document isn't so much that it categorizes documents
as that it provides an entry point for people trying to figure out how to do
something. It collects links to them all in one place, and it phrases them to
make it easy to figure out where to go.

Comment 12

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

I'm not sure listing all howto documents is useful, but at least we need to do something to that page.

Comment 13

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

Reopening for review by Sheppy.

Comment 14

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

The page in question is gone, the content was probably woefully out of date, and most if not all of it is covered elsewhere by now anyway. I agree this is obsolete.