“If you have entered the MDN website today, you have probably noticed that his appearance is now quite different. We hope it will be different for the better.” Thus begins the latest article published on the Mozilla Hacks blog, maintained by the Mozilla Foundation.
In case you didn’t know, the ‘MDN’ referred to in that article is the Mozilla Developers Network, the site where Mozilla collects all kinds of documentation on web developmentan entire reference website for amateurs and professionals in this field.
This redesign is quite an update for MDN, providing a new logo, improvements to navigation between articles, improved accessibility, and a ‘dark mode’ (This is not the first Internet reference website redesign announced this week to include this latest functionality.)
A reference for web developers
As it has done since its inception, the website has tutorials and reference guides on technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, CSS, web accessibility, front-end and back-end development frameworks, Git, HTTP protocol, web API, etc…
…but since 2020 it also incorporates self-training resources as a learning path for front-end developers who, today, generates more than 10% of monthly web traffic of the site.
But MDN is not a mere store of content, but also articulates a community of volunteers dedicated to keeping those updated and translating them: More than 45,000 users have made a contribution in the last 17 years, since its foundation in 2005.
“Anyone can contribute to MDN, whether it’s writing content, suggesting changes, or fixing bugs. […] We will also show [en la web] the latest contributions to our GitHub content repository.”
MDN was once a wiki: now it’s made up of Markdown files uploaded to a repository on GitHub
But perhaps the biggest news around MDN lies in the announcement of the imminent launch of an add-on subscription service, MDN Plus“based on feedback we get from web developers who want to customize their MDN experience.”
There is talk of exclusive content, such as new training content developed by industry experts with monthly cadence, as well as the possibility of download content in ebook formatand to use tools bookmarks and annotations throughout the website (both free and premium content).
Sören Hentzschel, a developer linked to the Mozilla ecosystem, claimed that the subscription price would be around 10 dollars per month or 100 dollars a year, and that initially it would be available in Spain and in 14 other countries (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore).
dates? We know nothing about it: Mozilla speaks only of “in the next few months”.