surfly-compat-data

surfly-compat-data (n):

1. a project to discover how much of the Web (browser APIs, JS features, HTTP headers, etc.) will work under Surfly.
2. the data gathered from our investigations, stored under features/.
   • run pipenv run ./populate.py to create new features and remove old features as needed
3. a nice interface for devs to update Surfly compatibility data.
   • uses Pages CMS, which can be configured using .pages.yml
4. a demo page which injects this data into browser compatibility tables on the MDN website.
   • the source of this demo page is stored under docs/¹ and hosted by Github pages
   • run pipenv run ./overlay.py to create JSON files of browser compatibility data in the format used by MDN; generated data will be saved in the data branch of this repository

Filling the data

How to investigate a feature

• If there's a test for this feature, that's already enough evidence that it's supported. Mark the feature as "supported" and mention the path to the test source. You're done!
• If there's no test for this feature, write one in one of the Surfly suites:
  • if your test passes:
    • mark the feature as supported
    • create a PR to cobro with your new test
  • if your test fails:
    • mark the feature as TODO (or NEVER, or partial, etc.)
    • create an issue to add support for this feature
• If there's no way to test this currently, try testing manually in glitch.me or similar.
  • if the feature works under Surfly:
    • mark the feature as supported (or partial, etc.)
    • create an issue to add tests for this feature (and mention your manual testing strategy!)
  • if the feature doesn't work under Surfly:
    • mark the feature as TODO (or NEVER, or partial, etc.)
    • create an issue to add support and tests for this feature (and mention your manual testing strategy!)

Grouping the changes

Each individual change from CMS results in a commit. Editing support for many features results in commit spam.

For multiple changes it's recommended to create a separate branch. It can be selected in the top left dropdown in the CMS.

Once the changes are ready - the PR based on the branch can be squashed and merged. All changes will be grouped in one commit.

Known issues

• the search feature in the public instance of Pages CMS is not currently working

Footnotes

1. The demo page source is stored in a directory named docs because this is the only non-root directory name that gh-pages can deploy from without creating a custom Github Actions workflow. ↩