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205 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
205 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
.. _internals-documentation:
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How the Django documentation works
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==================================
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\... and how to contribute.
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Django's documentation uses the Sphinx__ documentation system, which in turn is
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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.pocoo.org/
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__ http://docutils.sf.net/
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To actually build the documentation locally, you'll currently need to install
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Sphinx -- ``easy_install Sphinx`` should do the trick.
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Then, building the html is easy; just ``make html`` from the ``docs`` directory.
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To get started contributing, you'll want to read the `ReStructuredText
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Primer`__. After that, you'll want to read about the `Sphinx-specific markup`__
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that's used to manage metadata, indexing, and cross-references.
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__ http://sphinx.pocoo.org/rest.html
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__ http://sphinx.pocoo.org/markup/
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The main thing to keep in mind as you write and edit docs is that the more
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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 greatly
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helps readers. There's basically no limit to the amount of useful markup you can
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add.
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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 description units:
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__ http://sphinx.pocoo.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:: syncdb
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To link, use ``:djadmin:`syncdb```.
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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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An example
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----------
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For a quick example of how it all fits together, check this out:
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* First, the ``ref/settings.txt`` document starts out like this::
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.. _ref-settings:
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Available settings
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==================
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...
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* Next, if you look at the ``topics/settings.txt`` document, you can see how
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a link to ``ref/settings`` works::
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Available settings
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==================
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For a full list of available settings, see the :ref:`settings reference
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<ref-settings>`.
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* Next, notice how the settings (right now just the top few) are annotated::
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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 settings
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modules (in the format ``'foo.bar.baz'``) for which this site is an
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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``, I
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can reference it using ``:setting:`ADMIN_FOR```.
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That's basically how everything fits together.
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TODO
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----
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The work is mostly done, but here's what's left, in rough order of priority.
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* Fix up generic view docs: adapt Chapter 9 of the Django Book (consider
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this TODO item my permission and license) into
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``topics/generic-views.txt``; remove the intro material from
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``ref/generic-views.txt`` and just leave the function reference.
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* Change the "Added/changed in development version" callouts to proper
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Sphinx ``.. versionadded::`` or ``.. versionchanged::`` directives.
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* Check for and fix malformed links. Do this by running ``make linkcheck``
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and fix all of the 300+ errors/warnings.
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In particular, look at all the relative links; these need to be
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changed to proper references.
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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 intro
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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: there's lots of places that 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.pocoo.org/markup/desc.html#info-field-lists
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* Add ``.. code-block:: <lang>`` to literal blocks so that they get
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highlighted.
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Hints
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-----
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Some hints for making things look/read better:
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* Whenever possible, use links. So, use ``:setting:`ADMIN_FOR``` instead of
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````ADMIN_FOR````.
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* Some directives (``.. setting::``, for one) are prefix-style directives;
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they go *before* the unit they're describing. These are known as
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"crossref" directives. Others (``.. class::``, e.g.) generate their own
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markup; these should go inside the section they're describing. These are
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called "description units".
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You can tell which are which by looking at in :file:`_ext/djangodocs.py`;
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it registers roles as one of the other.
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* When referring to classes/functions/modules, etc., you'll want to use the
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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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