Tuesday, June 07, 2011

+1'ing our API docs


By Ashleigh Rentz, API Docs Program Manager

"Hey Scott, how do I format this API call so the data comes back as a string instead of an object?"

Sometimes it’s hard to find the right doc at the right time. Lots of web pages mention the terms you’re looking for, but which ones actually have them in the right context? We ask our friends and coworkers these questions because we bet they’ve seen the problem before. We trust their technical judgment and we know they can skip straight to the right answer.

That’s why we’ve just added the +1 button to the top of most code.google.com API docs:


Whenever you find the key information you need, we hope you’ll +1 that page and let the world know! It’s a simple way to help point the people you code with in the right direction and make RTFM’ing a bit easier for everyone.

Ashleigh Rentz is a Program Manager supporting the team of technical writers who tirelessly document Google’s developer APIs. She can often be seen skating down the halls between meetings.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

7 comments:

  1. HTML 5 Implementation of Google +1 Button Broken. it’s ignoring the data-* attributes. pls fix it.

    testcase http://examples.kierdarby.com/plusone/

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  2. Which I might be more likely to do if Google Apps accounts could do anything that involves a Google login. Like view a help page.

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  3. Assuming we haven't come across it after a trail of unhelpful pages ...

    Does any one person or body at Google oversee help pages architecture?

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  4. What about the +1 API ? :) I'd like to gather to my service Faveous.com

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  5. /plusone/ nice buttin form blog
    http://3shiiit.blogspot.com/

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  6. Ashleigh, do you know if there is a way to change the size of the +1 button beyond the 60 pixel standard and small version? I have looked through the setup pages and couldnt find anything....and if there isnt will that be an option in the future?

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  7. Take all the features from StackOverflow, and integrate them into Google Code ;)

    ReplyDelete