Updates to the CSS Info boxes

Over in mdn/kumascript, @dontcallmedom suggested making some changes to the “info box” in our CSS pages (i.e. this thing: https://screenshots.firefox.com/ClgbufyJt0TDoNg2/developer.mozilla.org).

Specifically, he’s suggesting that we remove the “Canonical order” entry, and also perhaps the “Media” entry. And that we think about and user test the other items, to see if they are useful and/or we can present them more effectively.

I agree with all this, and propose to remove “Canonical order” and “Media”. But I think this could use some more discussion, so I’m posting it here :).

Yes, let’s do it :slight_smile: We know from user testing that the value of those boxes is very limited, the vast majority of users didn’t make use of them at all.

I think we should simplify that box, yes. But I also think we should still have that information available, but in a second box later in the article. Sort of like we agreed to do for HTML elements.

Sheppy

+1 to simplifying this, and testing what people actually use on it. Might be useful to talk to some people we know probably make use of such detais, like lahmity, or perhaps sebastian.

I think canonical order definitely needs to go, as it is just non-sensical to non-spec heads. For medium, it is nearly always visual (or maybe always?). Would it make sense to only show it if it is not visual?

Does someone want to submit a documentation bug about it?

Does someone want to submit a documentation bug about it?

There is already a bug, linked from the OP.

Jumping in very late to this discussion, I agree that “Media” and “Canonical order” are of very little value to readers in general (even when I sometimes do have a look at them). I formerly mainly added them to the info boxes to make them equal to the info provided by the boxes within the specifications.

There are only a handful of cases where the media is not “visual”, e.g. the scroll snap properties. And the W3C already removed this info from its specifications. To what type of media a property applies should already be clear from it’s summary.

The canonical order is obsolete, because it now basically always says “per grammar”. In most cases the value syntax already covers the order of the values, and in those where it is unclear (mainly shorthand properties), the description of the values explains the order. A simple example for this is margin.

So +1 to remove those two pieces of information from the info boxes. We just need to ensure the info is provided in the prose where needed.

Sebastian

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Hi Sebastian! Thanks for adding your input, it’s very valuable especially as you were the person who originally added this :).

-> https://github.com/mdn/kumascript/pull/1356

I’ve merged https://github.com/mdn/kumascript/pull/1356, Ryan made a new deployment today and I’ve refreshed all 1007-odd CSS pages, and “Media” and “Canonical order” are both gone from these boxes.

I’d still like to remove the underlying data from mdn/data, but that’s another step.