Make browser-specs a data source for Specref #975
Comments
tobie
pushed a commit
to tobie/specref
that referenced
this issue
Jul 8, 2023
The [w3c/browser-specs](https://github.com/w3c/browser-specs/) project contains a curated list of specifications that compose the web platform. Most of the info it contains comes from the W3C API (that info is already in Specref), and from Specref itself. That said, the list also contains additional specs that are not in Specref. These are mostly "early" drafts developed in W3C community groups but not yet published as Working Drafts, and WebGL extension specs. With this update, Specref now retrieves specs from browser-specs that it does not yet know anything about. This is useful for spec editors, because specs in browser-specs get crawled and ingested in the cross-reference database of terms used by Bikeshed and Respec, meaning that a spec editor can currently end up in a situation where they can reference a term defined in a spec and yet are unable to reference the spec itself. The script runs first in `run-all` to drop specs from browser-specs as soon as possible (removal from the browser-specs source should typically mean that the spec has started to appear in another source, and it's going to be better to rely on that other source directly). The logic is based on `fetch-refs.js` with custom code to filter out specs that are already in Specref, and preserve former entries that no longer exist in browser-specs by creating aliases. Via w3c/browser-specs#975
|
browser-specs has now become of source for Specref for the specs that have a Once #944 is fixed, browser-specs could also replace the WICG source in Specref, which relies on a half-maintained |
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
Via discussion in #938 (comment)
The number of specifications listed in browser-specs but not in Specref used to be small. That list has grown over time. Today, the list contains 173 specs with a
"source": "spec"property (*). For the most part, these specifications are proposals that are not yet on the standardization track.As soon as we add a spec to browser-specs, its definitions start to appear in the cross-references databases used by spec authoring tools. These same editing tools rely on Specref for biblio references. That means spec authors can end up in a clunky situation where they can reference terms defined in another spec, but not the spec itself.
Probably time to look into making browser-specs a source of data for Specref.
(*) For completeness, the list has 93 specs with a
"source": "specref" property, and 299 with a"source": "w3c" property, totalling 392 specs shared with Specref (the W3C API being a source for Specref already).The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: