Old build URLs are no longer valid

[stucox]

@KuraFire @SlexAxton @paulirish @ryanseddon @patrickkettner

A lot of old detects used to include underscores in the property names. We standardised these to all-alphanumeric names for v3, but that means old build URLs which use these no longer work.

Do we simply say “old build URLs are no longer valid”?

If so that violates the cool URIs don’t change principle. I know we’ve said v3 is a good chance for API changes, but I’ve only just realised how many build URLs would become invalid (i.e. nearly every build including any non-core detects).

If not, the builder needs to know about the old names. The easiest way to do this would be to add the old names as aliases of the detects.

Here are all the property names which could occur in old build URLs which would no longer work; a few detects have these aliases defined, but using hyphens instead of underscores – e.g. battery-api instead of battery_api – so would require conversion by the builder:

• a_download
• audio_audiodata_api
• audio_webaudio_api
• battery_api
• battery_level
• blob_constructor
• canvas_todataurl_type
• css_backgroundposition_shorthand
• css_backgroundposition_xy
• css_backgroundrepeat
• css_backgroundsizecover
• css_boxsizing
• css_calc
• css_cubicbezierrange
• css_displayrunin
• css_displaytable
• css_filters
• css_hyphens
• css_lastchild
• css_mask
• css_mediaqueries
• css_objectfit
• css_overflow_scrolling
• css_pointerevents
• css_positionsticky
• css_remunit
• css_regions
• css_resize
• css_scrollbars
• css_subpixelfont
• css_supports
• css_userselect
• css_vhunit
• css_vmaxunit
• css_vminunit
• css_vwunit
• custom_protocol_handler
• dataview_api
• dom_classlist
• dom_createElement_attrs
• dom_dataset
• dom_microdata
• elem_datalist
• elem_details
• elem_output
• elem_progress_meter
• elem_ruby
• elem_time
• elem_track
• es5_strictmode
• event_deviceorientation_motion
• exif_orientation
• file_api
• forms_fileinput
• forms_formattribute
• file_filesystem
• forms_placeholder
• forms_speechinput
• forms_validation
• fullscreen_api
• iframe_sandbox
• iframe_seamless
• iframe_srcdoc
• img_apng
• img_webp
• lists_reversed
• network_connection
• network_eventsource
• network_xhr2
• pointerlock_api
• quota_management_api
• script_async
• script_defer
• style_scoped
• svg_filters
• url_data_uri
• web_intents
• webgl_extensions
• websockets_binary
• window_framed
• workers_blobworkers
• workers_dataworkers
• workers_sharedworkers

[patrickkettner]

Could we host the old builder for a while on a so domain, and redirect to it if an old URL is requested?

[SlexAxton]

There's a first-class aliases option in the addTest function. Translating old urls to new ones probably won't be too crazy.

Modernizr/feature-detects/blob.js

Line 25 in d6e1d6f

aliases: ['blob-constructor']

[paulirish]

I think we'll have put in the effort on our side to make old URLs work.

We've used these build URLs as firstclass representations of the build heavily so breaking them breaks expectations. We also don't want punt users to the old builder as we want our users with established builds to get the latest code

[stucox]

+1 for defining them as aliases.

So I think we probably want to add them hyphenated (a-download etc), as some detect properties used to use this format, then we’ll:

• Replace underscores in property names in the build URL with hyphens
• Use the result to look up the appropriate AMD module

Who fancies giving me a hand / doing this for me? :-)

I’m working on the updated builder for the v3 beta here btw. I’ll lift my logic out of that to create a module for @joecritch to use on the new site.

[nelsonpecora]

This is already affecting people using grunt-modernizr, since community tests in that are pointing to the old urls (which isn't always entirely obvious in its output).

[stucox]

@yoshokatana FYI, I think that’s a bit different: the issue with grunt-modernizr is to do with paths to detects in the repo – we’re talking about build URLs via modernizr.com here (which we include in the header comment in a custom build, so you can retrieve the same build again easily)

[stucox]

All good – fixed by @patrickkettner on #1282 and I’ve now updated the v3 builder to use them, e.g.:

http://v3.modernizr.com/download/#-shiv-cssclasses-domprefixes-file_api-forms_fileinput-file_filesystem-load

automatically changes to:

http://v3.modernizr.com/download/#-fileinput-filereader-filesystem-cssclasses-domprefixes-load-shiv