Bitcoin.org is a community funded project, donations are appreciated and used to improve the website.

Dev Docs: New Glossary And Search Feature

Thanks to several volunteers and the financial sponsorship of The Bitcoin Foundation, we’ve added two major new features to the Bitcoin.org Developer Documentation.

A new glossary section has been added to the Bitcoin.org Developer Documentation, and with it comes a fully-Javascript search engine that helps you look up glossary entries, Bitcoin Core RPCs, Bitcoin BIPs, Script-language opcodes, and Bitcoin P2P protocol messages.

Developer glossary main page

Developer glossary main page

The glossary main page provides a search box and a sorted list of terms. It uses a floating list so that it looks good on both mobiles and desktop/laptop screens.

A link is provided at the bottom of the page to allow readers to recommend new glossary terms. (It works like the Submit New Event link on the Events page.)

Glossary entries

Glossary entries

Each glossary entry has its own page providing a short definition (limited to 255 characters), one or more synonyms, zero or more “not to be confused with” terms, and zero or more links to resources on and off Bitcoin.org. Separate pages were used to allow search engines to link directly to the most relevant entry, rather than forcing users to scroll through a giant page of definitions.

The glossary currently has:

  • 89 glossary entry pages
  • 51 additional synonyms
  • 222 links (all internal to Bitcoin.org or to Bitcoin Wiki, BitcoinTalk, or Bitcoin StackExchange)

Each page includes links to edit it, view its history, or report an issue about it.

Glossary search box

A Javascript-powered search box is added to the following pages: Dev Guide, Dev Reference, Dev Examples, Dev Glossary, and individual glossary entry pages.

The box allows finding the following by keyword, listed in the order they appear in the search:

  • Glossary entries (Bitcoin.org)
  • RPCs (Bitcoin.org)
  • Opcodes (Bitcoin Wiki)
  • BIPs (just notable and non-withdrawn BIPs; GitHub.com BIPs repo)
  • Bitcoin P2P protocol messages (Bitcoin.org)

The search uses JQuery and JQuery UI, both MIT-licensed. Both are loaded from the Bitcoin.org server so there’s no stats leakage when people load them.