Added contributor's guide, updated links, install guide.

README.rst

@@ -44,11 +44,10 @@ Contributing
 This project is still under heavy development, and there are certainly rough
 edges and bugs. Issues and pull requests welcome! 
 
-Check out our `contributor's guide`_
-if you learn how to get started with contributing back.
-
-.. _`contributor's guide`: https://github.com/datreant/datreant/wiki/Contributing
+Check out our `contributor's guide`_ to learn how to get started with
+contributing back.
 
+.. _`contributor's guide`: http://datreant.readthedocs.org/en/develop/contributing.html
 
 .. |docs| image:: https://readthedocs.org/projects/datreant/badge/?version=develop
     :alt: Documentation Status

docs/contributing.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+
+.. _Contributing:
+
+========================
+Contributing to datreant
+========================
+**datreant** is an open-source project, with its development driven by the needs
+of its users. Anyone is welcome to contribute to any of its packages, which
+can all be found under the `datreant <https://github.com/datreant>`_ GitHub
+organization.
+
+Development model
+=================
+datreant subpackages follow the `development model outlined by Vincent
+Driessen <http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/>`_ , with the
+``develop`` branch being the unstable focal point for development. The
+``master`` branch merges from the develop branch only when all tests are
+passing, and usually only before a release. In general, master should be usable
+at all times, while develop may be broken at any particular moment.
+
+.. _Development_env:
+
+Setting up your development environment
+=======================================
+We recommend using `virtual environments
+<https://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv>`_ with `virtualenvwrapper
+<http://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.org/en/latest/>`_. Since
+datreant is a collection of subpackages, you will need to clone
+whichever repositories you are interested in contributing to. Since all
+datreant subpackages depend on `datreant.core
+<https://github.com/datreant/datreant.core>`_, you will probably want to clone
+this one::
+
+    git clone git@github.com:datreant/datreant.core.git
+
+Make a new virtualenv called ``datreant`` with::
+
+    mkvirtualenv datreant
+
+and make a development installation of ``datreant.core`` with::
+
+    cd datreant.core
+    pip install -e .
+
+The ``-e`` flag will cause pip to call setup with the ``develop`` option. This
+means that any changes on the source code will immediately be reflected in your
+virtual environment. 
+
+Repeat the same operations for any other datreant subpackage you wish to work
+on. Note that other subpackages are likely to have heavier dependencies.
+
+Running the tests locally
+=========================
+As you work on a datreant subpackage, it's important to see how your changes
+affected its expected behavior. With your virtualenv enabled::
+
+    workon datreant
+
+switch to the top-level directory of the subpackage you are working on and
+run::
+
+    py.test --cov src/ --pep8 src/
+    
+This will run all the tests for that subpackage (often inside
+``src/datreant/<subpackage_name>/tests``), with `coverage
+<https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pytest-cov>`_ and `PEP8
+<https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pytest-pep8>`_ checks.
+
+Note that to run the tests you will need to install ``py.test`` and the
+coverage and PEP8 plugins into your virtualenv::
+
+    pip install py.test pytest pytest-cov pytest-pep8

docs/index.rst

@@ -58,16 +58,11 @@ the project, clone the repository to your local machine with::
     git clone https://github.com/datreant/datreant.core.git
 
 
-Dependencies
-============
-The dependencies of ``datreant.core`` are light, with many being pure-Python
-packages themselves. 
-
-
 Contributing
 ============
 This project is still under heavy development, and there are certainly rough
-edges and bugs. Issues and pull requests welcome! 
+edges and bugs. Issues and pull requests welcome! See :ref:`Contributing`
+for more information.
 
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
@@ -84,11 +79,13 @@ edges and bugs. Issues and pull requests welcome!
     groups
     api 
 
-.. .. toctree::
-..     :maxdepth: 1
+.. toctree::
+    :maxdepth: 1
     :caption: For Developers
-    limbs-treelimbs
-    agglimbs-aggtreelimbs
+
+    contributing
+..    limbs-treelimbs
+..    agglimbs-aggtreelimbs
 
 
 .. toctree::

docs/install.rst

@@ -1,10 +1,38 @@
 ========================
 Installing datreant.core
 ========================
-There are no official releases of datreant yet, but the master branch on GitHub
-gives the most current state of the package. 
+You can install ``datreant.core`` from `PyPI <https://pypi.python.org/>`_ using pip::
 
-.. note:: Python 2.7 or above is required for all datreant packages.
+    pip install datreant.core
+
+It is also possible to use ``--user`` to install into your user Python
+site-packages directory::
+
+    pip install --user datreant.core
+
+All datreant packages currently support the following Python versions::
+
+- 2.7
+- 3.3
+- 3.4
+- 3.5
+
+
+Dependencies
+============
+The dependencies of ``datreant.core`` are light, with many being pure-Python
+packages themselves. The current dependencies are::
+
+- asciitree
+- pathlib
+- scandir
+- six
+- fuzzywuzzy
+
+These are automatically installed when installing ``datreant.core``.
+
+Installing from source
+======================
 
 To install from source, clone the repository and switch to the master branch ::
 
@@ -14,12 +42,14 @@ To install from source, clone the repository and switch to the master branch ::
 
 Installation of the packages is as simple as ::
 
-    python setup.py install
+    pip install .
 
 This installs datreant in the system wide python directory; this may require
-administrative privileges.
+administrative privileges. If you have a virtualenv active, it will install the
+package within your virtualenv. See :ref:`Development_env` for more on setting
+up a proper development environment.
+
+It is also possible to use ``--user`` to install into your user's site-packages
+directory::
 
-It is also possible to use ``--prefix``, ``--home``, or ``--user`` options for
-setup.py to install in a different (probably your local user) Python
-site-packages directory. ``python setup.py install --help`` should show you
-your options.
+    pip install --user -e .