writing-documentation.txt

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

To actually build the documentation locally, you'll currently need to install
Sphinx -- ``sudo 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 <sphinx:rst-primer>`. After that, you'll want to read about the
:ref:`Sphinx-specific markup <sphinx:sphinxmarkup>` that's used to manage
metadata, indexing, and cross-references.

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.

* **Web site** -- use two words, with Web capitalized.

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.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:: migrate

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

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

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

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

.. _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 a mandatory
blank line and an optional content (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.

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
    <available-settings>`. For a list of deprecated settings see
    :ref:`deprecated-settings`.

    You can find both in the :doc:`settings reference document
    </ref/settings>`.

  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:: 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.

.. _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.

* 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

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

* 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:: <lang>`` 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".