django/docs/internals/documentation.txt

.. _internals-documentation:

How the Django documentation works
==================================

\... and how to contribute.

Django's documentation uses the Sphinx__ documentation system, which in turn is
based on docutils__. The basic idea is that lightly-formatted plain-text
documentation is transformed into HTML, PDF, and any other output format.

__ http://sphinx.pocoo.org/
__ http://docutils.sourceforge.net/

To actually build the documentation locally, you'll currently need to install
Sphinx -- ``easy_install Sphinx`` should do the trick.

Then, building the html is easy; just ``make html`` from the ``docs`` directory.

To get started contributing, you'll want to read the `ReStructuredText
Primer`__. After that, you'll want to read about the `Sphinx-specific markup`__
that's used to manage metadata, indexing, and cross-references.

__ http://sphinx.pocoo.org/rest.html
__ http://sphinx.pocoo.org/markup/

The main thing to keep in mind as you write and edit docs is that the more
semantic markup you can add the better. So::

    Add ``django.contrib.auth`` to your ``INSTALLED_APPS``...

Isn't nearly as helpful as::

    Add :mod:`django.contrib.auth` to your :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`...

This is because Sphinx will generate proper links for the latter, which greatly
helps readers. There's basically no limit to the amount of useful markup you can
add.

Django-specific markup
----------------------

Besides the `Sphinx built-in markup`__, Django's docs defines some extra description units:

__ http://sphinx.pocoo.org/markup/desc.html

    * Settings::

            .. setting:: INSTALLED_APPS

      To link to a setting, use ``:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS```.

    * Template tags::

            .. templatetag:: regroup

      To link, use ``:ttag:`regroup```.

    * Template filters::

            .. templatefilter:: linebreaksbr

      To link, use ``:tfilter:`linebreaksbr```.

    * Field lookups (i.e. ``Foo.objects.filter(bar__exact=whatever)``)::

            .. fieldlookup:: exact

      To link, use ``:lookup:`exact```.

    * ``django-admin`` commands::

            .. django-admin:: syncdb

      To link, use ``:djadmin:`syncdb```.

    * ``django-admin`` command-line options::

            .. django-admin-option:: --traceback

      To link, use ``:djadminopt:`--traceback```.

An example
----------

For a quick example of how it all fits together, check this out:

    * First, the ``ref/settings.txt`` document starts out like this::

        .. _ref-settings:

        Available settings
        ==================

        ...

    * Next, if you look at the ``topics/settings.txt`` document, you can see how
      a link to ``ref/settings`` works::

        Available settings
        ==================

        For a full list of available settings, see the :ref:`settings reference
        <ref-settings>`.

    * Next, notice how the settings (right now just the top few) are annotated::

        .. setting:: ADMIN_FOR

        ADMIN_FOR
        ---------

        Default: ``()`` (Empty tuple)

        Used for admin-site settings modules, this should be a tuple of settings
        modules (in the format ``'foo.bar.baz'``) for which this site is an
        admin.

        The admin site uses this in its automatically-introspected
        documentation of models, views and template tags.

      This marks up the following header as the "canonical" target for the
      setting ``ADMIN_FOR`` This means any time I talk about ``ADMIN_FOR``, I
      can reference it using ``:setting:`ADMIN_FOR```.

That's basically how everything fits together.

TODO
----

The work is mostly done, but here's what's left, in rough order of priority.

    * Most of the various ``index.txt`` documents have *very* short or even
      non-existent intro text. Each of those documents needs a good short intro
      the content below that point.

    * The glossary is very perfunctory. It needs to be filled out.

    * Add more metadata targets: there's lots of places that look like::

            ``File.close()``
            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

      \... these should be::

            .. method:: File.close()

      That is, use metadata instead of titles.

    * Add more links -- nearly everything that's an inline code literal
      right now can probably be turned into a xref.

      See the ``literals_to_xrefs.py`` file in ``_ext`` -- it's a shell script
      to help do this work.

      This will probably be a continuing, never-ending project.

    * Add `info field lists`__ where appropriate.

      __ http://sphinx.pocoo.org/markup/desc.html#info-field-lists

    * Add ``.. code-block:: <lang>`` to literal blocks so that they get
      highlighted.

Hints
-----

Some hints for making things look/read better:

    * Whenever possible, use links. So, use ``:setting:`ADMIN_FOR``` instead of
      ````ADMIN_FOR````.

    * Some directives (``.. setting::``, for one) are prefix-style directives;
      they go *before* the unit they're describing. These are known as
      "crossref" directives. Others (``.. class::``, e.g.) generate their own
      markup; these should go inside the section they're describing. These are
      called "description units".

      You can tell which are which by looking at in :file:`_ext/djangodocs.py`;
      it registers roles as one of the other.

    * When referring to classes/functions/modules, etc., you'll want to use the
      fully-qualified name of the target
      (``:class:`django.contrib.contenttypes.models.ContentType```).

      Since this doesn't look all that awesome in the output -- it shows the
      entire path to the object -- you can prefix the target with a ``~``
      (that's a tilde) to get just the "last bit" of that path. So
      ``:class:`~django.contrib.contenttypes.models.ContentType``` will just
      display a link with the title "ContentType".