635559 - Create a guide to introduce the SDK to people with a webdev background

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Add-on SDK Graveyard :: Documentation, defect, P1)

Description

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

On the mailing list, pd says [1] there should be a guide explaining the SDK to people who come from a primarily webdev background.  That's a good idea, especially since a goal of Jetpack is to expand add-on development to webdevs.  I'm not sure what it would include except to point out that 1) add-ons do not run in a web page, so 2) the DOM and all its associated APIs are not available in add-on scripts, but 3) the standard JavaScript library is different from the DOM API so you can still do lots of things in add-on scripts that you do in web scripts.

[1] http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla-labs-jetpack/browse_thread/thread/d14fa11ff1b68957

Comment 1

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

I'd expect a webdev guide to cover a lot of the same ground that a guide/explanation on how and in what scope add-on code is run (see bug 633860 comment 7 and bug 577558 comment 10) would.  Even if a webdev guide turns out to be mostly a duplication of other docs, I think it would be useful if only to give webdevs a springboard into documentation that might be particularly relevant to them.

Comment 2

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

It could also reference this page: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/The_DOM_and_JavaScript

Thanks KWierso for this suggestion.

Comment 3

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(automatic reprioritization of 1.0 bugs)

Comment 4

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

Drew: does https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/1.0/dev-guide/addon-development/two-types-of-scripts.html cover this well enough?

Comment 5

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

I think so, thanks Will.