The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

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New Tobin Paradigm

The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-03-25, 16:08

Since we had to eventually get off the old and insecure wiki software and php version it was stuck on you may have noticed that the wiki is dead. Having a wiki, for us, was pretty much a failed concept way sooner than the five years it was up for. That's ok though.

Fear not the Developer Site will continue as a git-controlled simple-ish site that will be focused to Pale Moon specifics. The conversion of previous content is still in progress but I have completed the newly updated and revised build instructions for Windows and Linux!

Check them out:
http://developer.palemoon.org/build/windows/
http://developer.palemoon.org/build/linux/

The code and content for the Developer Site lives here:
https://github.com/MoonchildProductions/selene

Also, old URLs will be translated so no need to revise any links or bookmarks you might have. Unless you can be bothered to.

I will take questions.

Andrew Herbert

Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by Andrew Herbert » 2020-06-02, 00:53

Just noting that some pages in the "Archive of obsolete content" aren't linked in the main index, but only in that sidebar.

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-11-11, 04:51

So there has been a decent number of recent changes I just landed to the Developer Site. Aside from the Extensions page and something for the Add-ons Concept page and of course the front page index.. What else do we need to think about adding?

Yes I am asking you guys. So do it.

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Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by RealityRipple » 2020-11-11, 19:01

If possible, a list of breaking changes in APIs and elements for each version going forward, maybe?

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Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by Moonchild » 2020-11-11, 19:50

RealityRipple wrote:
2020-11-11, 19:01
breaking changes in APIs and elements for each version
... like what?
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

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Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by RealityRipple » 2020-11-11, 20:27

Moonchild wrote:
2020-11-11, 19:50
RealityRipple wrote:
2020-11-11, 19:01
breaking changes in APIs and elements for each version
... like what?
So far, I don't think you've made any of the big ones, but if a function's parameters are re-ordered or deprecated, or an element gets an attribute or property removed, those of course would be big ones. Smaller stuff would be calculation methodology changes that might mess up special use cases, such as any potential changes to JS timer granularity or floating point math, element or layering calculation changes if they're dependent on external values, UI additions that require themes to be updated. The kind of stuff that an add-on might need changes regarding, essentially.
The google-ified regular expressions you guys are working to port is definitely one I'd mention, for example. While it hopefully won't break any existing written regexp definitions, you never know what someone might have thrown in there...
The re-addition of mixed content security types would be another example. The fact it existed previously means some developers likely already account for it, and who knows whether those code paths were kept up to date or were cleaned up after its removal.
Should any of the "2" components ever be merged back with their classic, numberless classes, that would definitely be a big one on the list.
You guys have been doing a great job of keeping parity with the legacy XUL system thus far, but if it's going to continue growing, then it'd be nice to have a rough map to refer to.

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-11-11, 20:30

The relevant info for that stuff is in the Pale Moon Release Notes and UXP Change Log though. That is already detailed to various degrees every release.
I really don't want to add the devsite to the releng process in that way.

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Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by RealityRipple » 2020-11-11, 20:37

New Tobin Paradigm wrote:
2020-11-11, 20:30
The relevant info for that stuff is in the Pale Moon Release Notes and UXP Change Log though. That is already detailed to various degrees every release.
That's why I said "rough map". A repo log is more like a satellite image, and release notes and change logs are full of things that a developer doesn't need to worry about, so they're more like a story set in a location. Pointing out specific breaking changes lets a developer know exactly what they're in for when a new version comes out, and lets them quickly track down where something changed if they're a few versions behind. And hopefully, the more functionally friendly you are to developers, the more likely they are to enjoy working in your environment.

And hopefully most versions won't have breaking changes anyway~

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-11-11, 21:13

Again, that is what the Application Release Notes and the Platform Change Log is for as well as the Issues and development progress on the repos. We DO make an effort to make those with an interest of following along to be able to with the same amount of info as we use while we are doing it. That was part of the reason UXP has its own Change Log after all. An Issue (or Standalone Commit) level view. Also Release Notes make Notes about changes in Releases when it comes to backwards incompatibilities. We are improving step by step on that front.

I see NO REASON to duplicate and add extra burdens of effort for release engineering activities in regards to the Developer Site. The Developer Site should have as current of possible documentation of the current state not constantly tracking and explaining changes. The only real exception to that is build config which I try to keep progressively up to date as configuration changes because that is important to builders and really that is not really much of an exception.

Perhaps you fail to understand that when I asked for what else needs to be on the developer site what I was asking for. I wanted to know what items should be covered aside from Building and Add-on specifics.

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Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by vannilla » 2020-11-11, 21:30

People interested in the kind of stuff that makes API changes important should read the changelog(s) regardless of other available resources, so there's no need to involve the website at all.
About the site itself, I really tried to think of something, but all the resources I might be interested in at least as an extension developer, already have a link somewhere.
Actually, maybe a link to the XREF service would be nice to have somewhere. I had to use it a few times and it's quite nice.

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: The NEW Pale Moon Developer Site

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-11-11, 21:35

I was planning some documents along the lines of some of the old Mozilla Hacker material where that would be useful. Though, xref is a 20 year old perl beast and does use a lot of resources so linking from a primary place like the main menu wouldn't be a good idea. But I will cover xref in the context of some of those style documents. Maybe a docs page explaining what it is and what it does and how it can be used.

Of course xref is useful especially for application, platform, and extension developers. Should at the very least until more of those documents are written do an overview page of all our open resources. Yeah. Thank you Vanilla. Anything else?

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