717741 - Review and update Mobile landing page content

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Developer Documentation Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Janet Swisher]

The native UI for mobile is releasing in Fx11, so mobile-related content on MDN needs to be ready. 

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mobile and https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile 

Make a clear distinction between:

* Web design for mobile devices
* Firefox for Mobile (add-ons, etc.)

In both cases, links and content need to be current and complete.

Comment 1

[Janet Swisher]

I am thinking of splitting things so that the focus of the front page (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile) is on Firefox for Mobile, and the focus of the wiki page (https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mobile) is web-design-for-mobile, where each mentions the other topic in a side bar. 

The two topics are interconnected (e.g., a web designer might need the Fx emulator to test their pages if they don't have an Android device), so both need to be mentioned. But I think this will be more helpful than covering both topics in two places.

Comment 2

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

I think that's a good distinction to make.

Last I heard https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=704040#c4 is the latest re: using emulator to run Firefox native UI. Is that what we'd put in a new sidebar on the https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile ?

We need to really push for more "Mobile Web" content on MDN - developers need to be able to make compelling mobile web experiences if mobile web wants to compete with native apps.

Comment 3

[Jaclyn Fu]

Hi all - update that the final release launch for native UI won't go out until sometime around early June (roughly following timeline of FF13). Janet should another person be assigned for that release instead? 

Thanks everyone

Comment 4

[Janet Swisher]

Thanks for the heads-up about release timing. MWC is also a consideration. It's too late for updates to /en-US/mobile by then, but can still do something with /en/Mobile.

Jean-Yves is the doc driver for Fx13. But I'm fine with keeping this bug assigned to me.

Comment 5

[Jaclyn Fu]

at MWC, one of the most impressive talking points about FF Android was the Web API support. What do you think about tidying up/creating a page that focuses just on these APIs and making it more accessible from mobile MDN documentation?

Comment 6

[Jaclyn Fu]

Ping - how's the status of the content update?

Comment 7

[Jaclyn Fu]

Hi Janet - where are we with the content updates? Does the new content need to be localized?

Comment 8

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

Here's what I suggest we do:

1) create two new pages in the MDN Wiki:

* "Developer for the Mobile Web"
a browser-agnostic guide to building web sites that work on mobile devices. I've already written this, at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mobile, so I'm suggesting this be moved to https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mobile/Web_Development (or something similar)

* "Firefox for Android"
a landing page about Firefox for Android, pointing people at resources for getting involved with the project, web development, and add-on development. I've drafted this here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla/Firefox_for_Android.

2) Update the Wiki "Mobile" page at https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Mobile to contain links to the two new pages, and also https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla/Boot_to_Gecko, with a little blurb about each

3) For the Django page, https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile:
- replace the "Popular Mobile Documentation" with the same content as (2) above (that is, blurb + links to the three Mobile sub-pages)
- remove "Watch Mobile Videos" unless/until we can get an up-to-date video. Would be great to have one video showing off the new Firefox for Android interface, and one showing off B2G.
- remove the "Favorite Mobile Articles" section

Comment 9

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

So I've drafted some mobile landing pages on MDN.

1) For the Wiki landing page at https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Mobile
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I've made a sort of meta-landing page which points at landing pages for B2G, Firefox for Android and Mobile web development. The B2G page existed already, so I created the other two:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla/Firefox_for_Android
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mobile/Mobile_Web_Development

It's fairly limited at the moment, but at least all the content is up to date and accurate, as far as I can tell.

2) For the Django landing page at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd suggest removing: 
* the "Popular Mobile Documentation" section
* the videos 
* the "Favorite Mobile Articles" section

These are all terribly out of date. Instead I'd have the contents of https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Mobile at the top, followed by the existing "Recent Mobile News & Updates" section, which at least is current (it's a feed from http://planet.firefox.com/mobile/).

It would be great to have a video for the Django landing page of someone showing off Firefox for Android.

3) For the future
-----------------
We should:
* create more content in "mobile web development" to help people build cross-browser sites
* port the emulator guide here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Fennec/Android/Emulator to MDN
* create some documentation on add-on development using NativeWindow
* have better documentation of WebAPIs

But I'd like to do that in separate bugs.

Comment 10

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

2) the preceding MDN release will be 2012-05-29, so we'll need to file a bug for the changes and put rush it into the current sprint, or do it in the first week of our next sprint.

As for a video, experience tells us if you want a video done in time you need to start that process Very Soon™ :)

Comment 11

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

(In reply to Luke Crouch [:groovecoder] from comment #10)
> 2) the preceding MDN release will be 2012-05-29, so we'll need to file a bug
> for the changes and put rush it into the current sprint, or do it in the
> first week of our next sprint.

Thanks Luke! -> bug 754131.
 
> As for a video, experience tells us if you want a video done in time you
> need to start that process Very Soon™ :)

Yes, I'm not sure what it takes to get videos made, but I'd prefer not to block this bug on that, even if it means we need to update the page again later. Does that sound sensible to you?

Comment 12

[Janet Swisher]

The Django landing page (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile) has been removed from the main navigation on MDN, so the original concerns of this bug have dropped lower in priority.

Right now, the "Build and Use Firefox" nav menu contains (among others):

* "Firefox OS": https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS
* "Mobile": https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Mobile

Out of curiosity, I did a Google search on "developing Firefox Mobile". Here were my top results:

1. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/1.12/dev-guide/tutorials/mobile.html (outdated docs for Add-on SDK) 
2. http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/developers/ (I didn't know this page existed)
3. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile
4. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Mobile
5. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Mobile/Challenge (3 year old contest )
6. http://people.mozilla.com/~mfinkle/tutorials/ (tutorial about Fennec)
7. http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/top-firefox-extensions-mobile-content-development (article from 2006)
8. http://www.davidhayden.me/blog/mobile-development-with-firefox-15-and-responsive-mode
9. https://marketplace.firefox.com/developers/docs/quick_start
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_mobile

Cc'ing Sam Mott, who is probably unaware of this discussion. At this point, it may make sense to close this bug as WONT FIX, and open new bugs that address current strategic priorities.

Comment 13

[Janet Swisher]

Since the redesign, the pages in question are merged into https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Mobile

Closing this as FIXED, since the original concern has been addressed.