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334 lines
10 KiB
Text
=====================
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Writing documentation
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=====================
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We place a high importance on consistency and readability of documentation.
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After all, Django was created in a journalism environment! So we treat our
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documentation like we treat our code: we aim to improve it as often as
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possible.
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Documentation changes generally come in two forms:
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* General improvements: typo corrections, error fixes and better
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explanations through clearer writing and more examples.
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* New features: documentation of features that have been added to the
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framework since the last release.
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This section explains how writers can craft their documentation changes
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in the most useful and least error-prone ways.
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Getting the raw documentation
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-----------------------------
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Though Django's documentation is intended to be read as HTML at
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https://docs.djangoproject.com/, we edit it as a collection of text files for
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maximum flexibility. These files live in the top-level ``docs/`` directory of a
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Django release.
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If you'd like to start contributing to our docs, get the development version of
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Django from the source code repository
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(see :ref:`installing-development-version`). The development version has the
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latest-and-greatest documentation, just as it has latest-and-greatest code.
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We also backport documentation fixes and improvements, at the discretion of the
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committer, to the last release branch. That's because it's highly advantageous
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to have the docs for the last release be up-to-date and correct (see
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:ref:`differences-between-doc-versions`).
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Getting started with Sphinx
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---------------------------
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Django's documentation uses the Sphinx__ documentation system, which in turn
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is based on docutils__. The basic idea is that lightly-formatted plain-text
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documentation is transformed into HTML, PDF, and any other output format.
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__ http://sphinx-doc.org/
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__ http://docutils.sourceforge.net/
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To actually build the documentation locally, you'll currently need to install
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Sphinx -- ``sudo pip install Sphinx`` should do the trick.
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.. note::
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Building the Django documentation requires Sphinx 1.0.2 or newer. Sphinx
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also requires the Pygments__ library for syntax highlighting; building the
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Django documentation requires Pygments 1.1 or newer (a new-enough version
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should automatically be installed along with Sphinx).
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__ http://pygments.org
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Then, building the HTML is easy; just ``make html`` (or ``make.bat html`` on
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Windows) from the ``docs`` directory.
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To get started contributing, you'll want to read the :ref:`reStructuredText
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Primer <sphinx:rst-primer>`. After that, you'll want to read about the
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:ref:`Sphinx-specific markup <sphinx:sphinxmarkup>` that's used to manage
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metadata, indexing, and cross-references.
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Commonly used terms
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-------------------
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Here are some style guidelines on commonly used terms throughout the
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documentation:
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* **Django** -- when referring to the framework, capitalize Django. It is
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lowercase only in Python code and in the djangoproject.com logo.
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* **email** -- no hyphen.
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* **MySQL**, **PostgreSQL**, **SQLite**
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* **SQL** -- when referring to SQL, the expected pronunciation should be
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"Ess Queue Ell" and not "sequel". Thus in a phrase like "Returns an
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SQL expression", "SQL" should be preceded by "an" and not "a".
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* **Python** -- when referring to the language, capitalize Python.
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* **realize**, **customize**, **initialize**, etc. -- use the American
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"ize" suffix, not "ise."
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* **subclass** -- it's a single word without a hyphen, both as a verb
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("subclass that model") and as a noun ("create a subclass").
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* **Web**, **World Wide Web**, **the Web** -- note Web is always
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capitalized when referring to the World Wide Web.
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* **Web site** -- use two words, with Web capitalized.
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Django-specific terminology
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---------------------------
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* **model** -- it's not capitalized.
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* **template** -- it's not capitalized.
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* **URLconf** -- use three capitalized letters, with no space before
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"conf."
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* **view** -- it's not capitalized.
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Guidelines for reStructuredText files
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-------------------------------------
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These guidelines regulate the format of our reST (reStructuredText)
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documentation:
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* In section titles, capitalize only initial words and proper nouns.
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* Wrap the documentation at 80 characters wide, unless a code example
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is significantly less readable when split over two lines, or for another
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good reason.
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* The main thing to keep in mind as you write and edit docs is that the
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more semantic markup you can add the better. So::
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Add ``django.contrib.auth`` to your ``INSTALLED_APPS``...
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Isn't nearly as helpful as::
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Add :mod:`django.contrib.auth` to your :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`...
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This is because Sphinx will generate proper links for the latter, which
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greatly helps readers. There's basically no limit to the amount of
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useful markup you can add.
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* Use :mod:`~sphinx.ext.intersphinx` to reference Python's and Sphinx'
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documentation.
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Django-specific markup
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----------------------
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Besides the `Sphinx built-in markup`__, Django's docs defines some extra
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description units:
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__ http://sphinx-doc.org/markup/desc.html
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* Settings::
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.. setting:: INSTALLED_APPS
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To link to a setting, use ``:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS```.
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* Template tags::
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.. templatetag:: regroup
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To link, use ``:ttag:`regroup```.
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* Template filters::
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.. templatefilter:: linebreaksbr
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To link, use ``:tfilter:`linebreaksbr```.
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* Field lookups (i.e. ``Foo.objects.filter(bar__exact=whatever)``)::
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.. fieldlookup:: exact
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To link, use ``:lookup:`exact```.
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* ``django-admin`` commands::
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.. django-admin:: migrate
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To link, use ``:djadmin:`migrate```.
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* ``django-admin`` command-line options::
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.. django-admin-option:: --traceback
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To link, use ``:djadminopt:`--traceback```.
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.. _documenting-new-features:
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Documenting new features
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------------------------
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Our policy for new features is:
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All documentation of new features should be written in a way that
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clearly designates the features are only available in the Django
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development version. Assume documentation readers are using the latest
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release, not the development version.
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Our preferred way for marking new features is by prefacing the features'
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documentation with: "``.. versionadded:: X.Y``", followed by a a mandatory
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blank line and an optional content (indented).
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General improvements, or other changes to the APIs that should be emphasized
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should use the "``.. versionchanged:: X.Y``" directive (with the same format
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as the ``versionadded`` mentioned above.
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An example
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----------
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For a quick example of how it all fits together, consider this hypothetical
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example:
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* First, the ``ref/settings.txt`` document could have an overall layout
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like this:
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.. code-block:: rst
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========
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Settings
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========
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...
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.. _available-settings:
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Available settings
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==================
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...
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.. _deprecated-settings:
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Deprecated settings
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===================
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...
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* Next, the ``topics/settings.txt`` document could contain something like
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this:
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.. code-block:: rst
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You can access a :ref:`listing of all available settings
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<available-settings>`. For a list of deprecated settings see
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:ref:`deprecated-settings`.
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You can find both in the :doc:`settings reference document
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</ref/settings>`.
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We use the Sphinx :rst:role:`doc` cross reference element when we want to
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link to another document as a whole and the :rst:role:`ref` element when
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we want to link to an arbitrary location in a document.
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* Next, notice how the settings are annotated:
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.. code-block:: rst
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.. setting:: ADMIN_FOR
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ADMIN_FOR
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---------
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Default: ``()`` (Empty tuple)
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Used for admin-site settings modules, this should be a tuple of
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settings modules (in the format ``'foo.bar.baz'``) for which this site
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is an admin.
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The admin site uses this in its automatically-introspected
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documentation of models, views and template tags.
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This marks up the following header as the "canonical" target for the
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setting ``ADMIN_FOR`` This means any time I talk about ``ADMIN_FOR``,
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I can reference it using ``:setting:`ADMIN_FOR```.
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That's basically how everything fits together.
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.. _improving-the-documentation:
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Improving the documentation
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---------------------------
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A few small improvements can be made to make the documentation read and
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look better:
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* Most of the various ``index.txt`` documents have *very* short or even
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non-existent intro text. Each of those documents needs a good short
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intro the content below that point.
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* The glossary is very perfunctory. It needs to be filled out.
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* Add more metadata targets. Lots of places look like::
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``File.close()``
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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\... these should be::
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.. method:: File.close()
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That is, use metadata instead of titles.
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* Add more links -- nearly everything that's an inline code literal
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right now can probably be turned into a xref.
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See the ``literals_to_xrefs.py`` file in ``_ext`` -- it's a shell script
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to help do this work.
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This will probably be a continuing, never-ending project.
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* Add `info field lists`__ where appropriate.
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__ http://sphinx-doc.org/markup/desc.html#info-field-lists
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* Whenever possible, use links. So, use ``:setting:`ADMIN_FOR``` instead
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of ````ADMIN_FOR````.
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* Use directives where appropriate. Some directives
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(e.g. ``.. setting::``) are prefix-style directives; they go *before*
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the unit they're describing. These are known as "crossref" directives.
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Others (e.g. ``.. class::``) generate their own markup; these should go
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inside the section they're describing. These are called
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"description units".
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You can tell which are which by looking at in
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:file:`_ext/djangodocs.py`; it registers roles as one of the other.
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* Add ``.. code-block:: <lang>`` to literal blocks so that they get
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highlighted.
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* When referring to classes/functions/modules, etc., you'll want to use
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the fully-qualified name of the target
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(``:class:`django.contrib.contenttypes.models.ContentType```).
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Since this doesn't look all that awesome in the output -- it shows the
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entire path to the object -- you can prefix the target with a ``~``
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(that's a tilde) to get just the "last bit" of that path. So
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``:class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.models.ContentType``` will just
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display a link with the title "ContentType".
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