Open Web Tools Directory
One of the best things Mozilla Labs could do is help developers understand the broad universe of tools that already exist and expose some of the fantastic and amazing work that’s been done.
There are an immense number of tools that have been created to help web developers. Unfortunately, you might never know this; there’s no central index of these tools. It turns out that keeping up with all the development in this space is really difficult–even for folks like us who have been tracking it every day for years.
In addition to creating new tools, one of the best things Mozilla Labs could do is help developers understand the broad universe of tools that already exist and expose some of the fantastic and amazing work that’s been done.
They went with a “space” theme to emphasize the sheer size of the tool ecosystem (though at the moment they only have a small fraction of the tools available listed). And, frankly, they just couldn’t do another table-based master/detail database application; they wanted a directory that would be fun to use (and perhaps a bit of fun to create as well).
First, they were putting out a call for folks to tell them about their tools. They’ve prepared a data entry form for you to use to submit a tool; "please, help us fill up the directory with the hundreds or thousands of items we’ve missed! Your entries won’t go live immediately, but we’ll review them on a regular basis and get them added".
They were also exploring concepts for adding social participation features, like ranking the tools and commenting on them (though they’d like to have a good solution to astroturfing in place before rolling them out).
They also wanted to make searching the tools better. Right now, the search box at the bottom of the screen searches over all text fields and you can limit the directory to broad categories of tools, like “Debug”-related tools.
Finally, they had an accessible version of the directory, both for browsers without canvas support and for screen reader support.They also had a post discussing some of the technical details over at Ajaxian.com.
They were looking forward to evolving the directory and working with the web community to make it a vibrant resource for discovering and tracking the web’s amazing tools universe.
Comments
Be the first to write a comment
You must me logged in to write a comment.