Contributor's guide (#549)

* first pass at new contributor's guide

* fix links to contributor's guide

* fix whitespace

* Update contributing guidelines with more examples specific content

* formatting updates in contrib.rst

* Update contrib.rst

* Update contrib.rst

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -1,73 +1 @@
-Please first refer to [GeoCAT Contributor's Guide](https://geocat.ucar.edu/pages/contributing.html) for overall
-contribution guidelines (such as detailed description of GeoCAT structure, forking, repository cloning,
-branching, etc.). Once you determine that a function should be contributed under this repo, please refer to the
-following contribution guidelines:
-
-
-# Adding new plotting scripts to the Geocat-examples repo
-
-1. Please check the followings to ensure that the example you are about to work on has not been ported yet:
-
-    - [GeoCAT-Examples Gallery](https://geocat-examples.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) or
-    the `Gallery` as well as `GeoCAT-comp-examples` directories of this repo,
-
-    - The list of [Issues](https://github.com/NCAR/GeoCAT-examples/issues) for this repo to see if any of
-    the existing to-do items are something you might be interested in working on.
-
-        - If so, please comment (or self-assign the issue if you have permissions to do so) indicating that
-        you intend to work on it.
-
-        - Otherwise, you may create and self-assign an issue that describes need for the plot you are planning
-        to contribute.
-
-    - For reference, NCL scripts can be seen as well: [NCL applications](http://ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/).
-
-2. Determine if any critical computational functions are missing.
-
-    - If so, please submit a new issue (or comment on an existing issue) on this repository's GitHub page
-    containing the script name and explanation of the need for computational function(s).
-
-3. Determine if any data files needed by your script are available in the
-[GeoCAT-datafiles](https://github.com/NCAR/GeoCAT-datafiles) repo:
-
-    - If not,
-
-        - Submit a new issue (or comment on an existing issue) on this repository's GitHub page containing
-        the name of the missing datafile(s), or
-
-        - Check [GeoCAT-datafiles contributing documentation](https://github.com/NCAR/geocat-datafiles/blob/contribuotr_updates/CONTRIBUTING.md)
-        to see if you can contribute to the [GeoCAT-datafiles](https://github.com/NCAR/geocat-datafiles) by
-        uploading your own file.
-
-4. Create a new Python script:
-
-    - [template_script.py](https://github.com/NCAR/GeoCAT-examples/blob/master/template_script.py)
-    (at the root of this repo) could be a great starting point for a new script, so you may want to
-    consider copying that to `NCL_new_script_1.py` instead of starting from scratch.
-
-    - If this script originates from an NCL example, use the original NCL script's basename,
-     but prepended with "NCL_". For example: `new_script_1.ncl` becomes `NCL_new_script_1.py`.
-
-5. When you complete an example script, please try building the
-[Sphinx](https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/)-generated documentation (i.e. html files)
-from this repo by running the following commands from within the `/docs` directory:
-
-   ```bash
-   make html
-   ```
-
-   - This is particularly important to see the final look of a plotting example on
-   [GeoCAT-Examples Gallery](https://geocat-examples.readthedocs.io) as varying IDEs or local development set up of
-   developers preferences would generate different plotting results from each other.
-
-   - Note: Please follow the [installation instructions](https://github.com/NCAR/geocat-examples/INSTALLATION.md)
-   beforehand to ensure an accurate conda environment is installed and activated for GeoCAT-examples, including
-   [Sphinx](https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/).
-
-   - The generated HTML file can be viewed under `$GEOCAT_EXAMPLES/_build/html/gallery/` to ensure that
-   any output (text or graphical) matches what you expected. The complete list of the plotting examples can be
-   viewed by running the following command as well:
-
-     ```bash
-     open _build/html/gallery/index.html
-     ```
+The contributor's guide for GeoCAT-examples can be found in our [online documentation](https://geocat-examples.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contrib.html).

INSTALLATION.md

@@ -3,5 +3,5 @@
 GeoCAT-examples is a collection of standalone visualization examples, and it is not distributed as a conda package;
 thus, there is no installation for it (via conda or other package management systems). Because of this, this section
 refers to accessing the GeoCAT-examples scripts and how to build a conda environment to run them in. These instructions
-can be followed better through the [installation webpage](https://geocat-examples.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html)
+can be followed better through the [installation page](https://geocat-examples.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html)
 on the GeoCAT-examples gallery website.

README.md

@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ in the function's doc string and/or requires visualization for improved demonstr
 
 [GeoCAT Homepage](https://geocat.ucar.edu/)
 
-[GeoCAT Contributor's Guide](https://geocat.ucar.edu/pages/contributing.html)
+[GeoCAT Contributor's Guide](https://geocat-examples.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contrib.html)
 
 [GeoCAT-Examples Gallery](https://geocat-examples.readthedocs.io)
 
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ in the function's doc string and/or requires visualization for improved demonstr
 
 # Installation instructions
 
-Please see our documentation for [installation instructions](INSTALLATION.md).
+Please see our documentation for [installation instructions](https://geocat-examples.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html).
 
 # Citing GeoCAT-examples