===================== Writing documentation ===================== We place a high importance on consistency and readability of documentation. After all, Django was created in a journalism environment! So we treat our documentation like we treat our code: we aim to improve it as often as possible. Documentation changes generally come in two forms: * General improvements: typo corrections, error fixes and better explanations through clearer writing and more examples. * New features: documentation of features that have been added to the framework since the last release. This section explains how writers can craft their documentation changes in the most useful and least error-prone ways. Getting the raw documentation ----------------------------- Though Django's documentation is intended to be read as HTML at https://docs.djangoproject.com/, we edit it as a collection of text files for maximum flexibility. These files live in the top-level ``docs/`` directory of a Django release. If you'd like to start contributing to our docs, get the development version of Django from the source code repository (see :ref:`installing-development-version`). The development version has the latest-and-greatest documentation, just as it has latest-and-greatest code. We also backport documentation fixes and improvements, at the discretion of the committer, to the last release branch. That's because it's highly advantageous to have the docs for the last release be up-to-date and correct (see :ref:`differences-between-doc-versions`). Getting started with Sphinx --------------------------- 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-doc.org/ __ http://docutils.sourceforge.net/ To actually build the documentation locally, you'll currently need to install Sphinx -- ``pip install Sphinx`` should do the trick. .. note:: Building the Django documentation requires Sphinx 1.0.2 or newer. Sphinx also requires the Pygments__ library for syntax highlighting; building the Django documentation requires Pygments 1.1 or newer (a new-enough version should automatically be installed along with Sphinx). __ http://pygments.org Then, building the HTML is easy; just ``make html`` (or ``make.bat html`` on Windows) from the ``docs`` directory. To get started contributing, you'll want to read the :ref:`reStructuredText Primer `. After that, you'll want to read about the :ref:`Sphinx-specific markup ` that's used to manage metadata, indexing, and cross-references. How the documentation is organized ---------------------------------- The documentation is organized into several categories: * :doc:`Tutorials ` take the reader by the hand through a series of steps to create something. The important thing in a tutorial is to help the reader achieve something useful, preferably as early as possible, in order to give them confidence. Explain the nature of the problem we're solving, so that the reader understands what we're trying to achieve. Don't feel that you need to begin with explanations of how things work - what matters is what the reader does, not what you explain. It can be helpful to refer back to what you've done and explain afterwards. * :doc:`Topic guides ` aim to explain a concept or subject at a fairly high level. Link to reference material rather than repeat it. Use examples and don't be reluctant to explain things that seem very basic to you - it might be the explanation someone else needs. Providing background context helps a newcomer connect the topic to things that they already know. * :doc:`Reference guides ` contain technical reference for APIs. They describe the functioning of Django's internal machinery and instruct in its use. Keep reference material tightly focused on the subject. Assume that the reader already understands the basic concepts involved but needs to know or be reminded of how Django does it. Reference guides aren't the place for general explanation. If you find yourself explaining basic concepts, you may want to move that material to a topic guide. * :doc:`How-to guides ` are recipes that take the reader through steps in key subjects. What matters most in a how-to guide is what a user wants to achieve. A how-to should always be result-oriented rather than focused on internal details of how Django implements whatever is being discussed. These guides are more advanced than tutorials and assume some knowledge about how Django works. Assume that the reader has followed the tutorials and don't hesitate to refer the reader back to the appropriate tutorial rather than repeat the same material. Writing style ------------- When using pronouns in reference to a hypothetical person, such as "a user with a session cookie", gender neutral pronouns (they/their/them) should be used. Instead of: * he or she... use they. * him or her... use them. * his or her... use their. * his or hers... use theirs. * himself or herself... use themselves. Commonly used terms ------------------- Here are some style guidelines on commonly used terms throughout the documentation: * **Django** -- when referring to the framework, capitalize Django. It is lowercase only in Python code and in the djangoproject.com logo. * **email** -- no hyphen. * **MySQL**, **PostgreSQL**, **SQLite** * **SQL** -- when referring to SQL, the expected pronunciation should be "Ess Queue Ell" and not "sequel". Thus in a phrase like "Returns an SQL expression", "SQL" should be preceded by "an" and not "a". * **Python** -- when referring to the language, capitalize Python. * **realize**, **customize**, **initialize**, etc. -- use the American "ize" suffix, not "ise." * **subclass** -- it's a single word without a hyphen, both as a verb ("subclass that model") and as a noun ("create a subclass"). * **Web**, **World Wide Web**, **the Web** -- note Web is always capitalized when referring to the World Wide Web. * **website** -- use one word, without capitalization. Django-specific terminology --------------------------- * **model** -- it's not capitalized. * **template** -- it's not capitalized. * **URLconf** -- use three capitalized letters, with no space before "conf." * **view** -- it's not capitalized. Guidelines for reStructuredText files ------------------------------------- These guidelines regulate the format of our reST (reStructuredText) documentation: * In section titles, capitalize only initial words and proper nouns. * Wrap the documentation at 80 characters wide, unless a code example is significantly less readable when split over two lines, or for another good reason. * 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. * Use :mod:`~sphinx.ext.intersphinx` to reference Python's and Sphinx' documentation. Django-specific markup ---------------------- Besides the `Sphinx built-in markup`__, Django's docs defines some extra description units: __ http://sphinx-doc.org/markup/ * 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:: migrate To link, use ``:djadmin:`migrate```. * ``django-admin`` command-line options:: .. django-admin-option:: --traceback To link, use ``:djadminopt:`--traceback```. * Links to Trac tickets (typically reserved for patch release notes):: :ticket:`12345` .. _documenting-new-features: Documenting new features ------------------------ Our policy for new features is: All documentation of new features should be written in a way that clearly designates the features are only available in the Django development version. Assume documentation readers are using the latest release, not the development version. Our preferred way for marking new features is by prefacing the features' documentation with: "``.. versionadded:: X.Y``", followed by a mandatory blank line and an optional description (indented). General improvements, or other changes to the APIs that should be emphasized should use the "``.. versionchanged:: X.Y``" directive (with the same format as the ``versionadded`` mentioned above. These ``versionadded`` and ``versionchanged`` blocks should be "self-contained." In other words, since we only keep these annotations around for two releases, it's nice to be able to remove the annotation and its contents without having to reflow, reindent, or edit the surrounding text. For example, instead of putting the entire description of a new or changed feature in a block, do something like this:: .. class:: Author(first_name, last_name, middle_name=None) A person who writes books. ``first_name`` is ... ... ``middle_name`` is ... .. versionchanged:: A.B The ``middle_name`` argument was added. Put the changed annotation notes at the bottom of a section, not the top. Also, avoid referring to a specific version of Django outside a ``versionadded`` or ``versionchanged`` block. Even inside a block, it's often redundant to do so as these annotations render as "New in Django A.B:" and "Changed in Django A.B", respectively. If a function, attribute, etc. is added, it's also okay to use a ``versionadded`` annotation like this:: .. attribute:: Author.middle_name .. versionadded:: A.B An author's middle name. We can simply remove the ``.. versionadded:: A.B`` annotation without any indentation changes when the time comes. Minimizing images ----------------- Optimize image compression where possible. For PNG files, use OptiPNG and AdvanceCOMP's ``advpng``: .. code-block:: console $ cd docs/ $ optipng -o7 -zm1-9 -i0 -strip all `find . -type f -not -path "./_build/*" -name "*.png"` $ advpng -z4 `find . -type f -not -path "./_build/*" -name "*.png"` This is based on OptiPNG version 0.7.5. Older versions may complain about the ``--strip all`` option being lossy. An example ---------- For a quick example of how it all fits together, consider this hypothetical example: * First, the ``ref/settings.txt`` document could have an overall layout like this: .. code-block:: rst ======== Settings ======== ... .. _available-settings: Available settings ================== ... .. _deprecated-settings: Deprecated settings =================== ... * Next, the ``topics/settings.txt`` document could contain something like this: .. code-block:: rst You can access a :ref:`listing of all available settings `. For a list of deprecated settings see :ref:`deprecated-settings`. You can find both in the :doc:`settings reference document `. We use the Sphinx :rst:role:`doc` cross reference element when we want to link to another document as a whole and the :rst:role:`ref` element when we want to link to an arbitrary location in a document. * Next, notice how the settings are annotated: .. code-block:: rst .. setting:: ADMINS ADMINS ------ Default: ``[]`` (Empty list) A list of all the people who get code error notifications. When ``DEBUG=False`` and a view raises an exception, Django will email these people with the full exception information. Each member of the list should be a tuple of (Full name, email address). Example:: [('John', 'john@example.com'), ('Mary', 'mary@example.com')] Note that Django will email *all* of these people whenever an error happens. See :doc:`/howto/error-reporting` for more information. This marks up the following header as the "canonical" target for the setting ``ADMINS``. This means any time I talk about ``ADMINS``, I can reference it using ``:setting:`ADMINS```. That's basically how everything fits together. .. _improving-the-documentation: Improving the documentation --------------------------- A few small improvements can be made to make the documentation read and look better: * 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. Lots of places look like:: ``File.close()`` ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \... these should be:: .. method:: File.close() That is, use metadata instead of titles. * Whenever possible, use links. So, use ``:setting:`ADMINS``` instead of ````ADMINS````. * Use directives where appropriate. Some directives (e.g. ``.. setting::``) are prefix-style directives; they go *before* the unit they're describing. These are known as "crossref" directives. Others (e.g. ``.. class::``) 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. * Add ``.. code-block:: `` to literal blocks so that they get highlighted. * 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". .. _documentation-spelling-check: Spelling check -------------- Before you commit your docs, it's a good idea to run the spelling checker. You'll need to install a couple packages first: * `pyenchant `_ (which requires `enchant `_) * `sphinxcontrib-spelling `_ Then from the ``docs`` directory, run ``make spelling``. Wrong words (if any) along with the file and line number where they occur will be saved to ``_build/spelling/output.txt``. If you encounter false-positives (error output that actually is correct), do one of the following: * Surround inline code or brand/technology names with grave accents (`). * Find synonyms that the spell checker recognizes. * If, and only if, you are sure the word you are using is correct - add it to ``docs/spelling_wordlist`` (please keep the list in alphabetical order). Translating documentation ------------------------- See :ref:`Localizing the Django documentation ` if you'd like to help translate the documentation into another language. .. _django-admin-manpage: ``django-admin`` man page ------------------------- Sphinx can generate a manual page for the :doc:`django-admin ` command. This is configured in ``docs/conf.py``. Unlike other documentation output, this man page should be included in the Django repository and the releases as ``docs/man/django-admin.1``. There isn't a need to update this file when updating the documentation, as it's updated once as part of the release process. To generate an updated version of the man page, run ``make man`` in the ``docs`` directory. The new man page will be written in ``docs/_build/man/django-admin.1``.