Document structures
Throughout MDN, there are various document structures that are used repeatedly, to provide consistent presentation of information in MDN articles. Here are articles describing these structures, so that, as an MDN author, you can recognize, apply, and modify them as appropriate for documents you write, edit, or translate.
- Banners and notices
- Sometimes, an article needs a special notice added to it. This might happen if the page covers deprecated technology or other material that shouldn't be used in production code. This article covers the most common such cases and what to do.
- Code examples
- On MDN, you'll see numerous code examples inserted throughout the pages to demonstrate usage of web platform features. This article discusses the different mechanisms available for adding code examples to pages, along with which ones you should use and when.
- Compatibility tables and the browser compatibility data repository (BCD)
- MDN has a standard format for compatibility tables for our open web documentation; that is, documentation of technologies such as the DOM, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG, and so forth, that are shared across all browsers. This article is a "getting started" guide to how to add to and maintain the database from which the compatibility tables are generated, as well as how to integrate the tables into articles.
- Live samples
- MDN supports turning sample code displayed in articles into running samples the reader can look at in action. These live samples can include HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in any combination. Note that "live" samples are not interactive; however, they do ensure that the output displayed for a sample matches the code of the sample exactly, because it is actually generated by the code sample.
- Page types
- There are a number of types of pages that are used repeatedly on MDN. This article describes these page types, their purpose, and gives examples of each and templates to use when creating a new page.
- Quicklinks
- MDN supports adding quicklinks to pages; these are boxes containing a potentially hierarchical list of links to other pages on MDN or to pages off-site. This article describes how to create quicklinks boxes.
- Specification tables
- Every reference page on MDN should provide information about the specification or specifications in which that API or technology was defined. This article demonstrates what these tables look like and explains how to add them.
- Syntax sections
- The syntax section of an MDN reference page contains a syntax box defining the exact syntax that a feature has (e.g. what parameters can it accept, which ones are optional?) This article explains how to write syntax boxes for reference articles.
- Using macros
- The Yari platform on which MDN runs provides a macro system, KumaScript, which makes it possible to automate certain tasks. This article provides information on how to invoke MDN's macros within articles.