wiki:Submitting/Docs

Version 5 (modified by annakrat, 10 years ago) ( diff )

improve formatting

Table of Contents

  1. HTML Pages
    1. Module Manual Pages
    2. Supported HTML Tags
    3. Markup Protocol
  2. SVN Properties
  3. Images

Submitting Documentation

There are two types of documentation

  • User manual: we write it in simple HTML, storing the manual in a file '<module>.html' within the subdirectory of the module. The file contains no header nor footer. The complete HTML file is autogenerated during the compilation process (indeed, it is generated in a virtual session directly after compilation of the module). In this virtual session the module is called internally with --html-description which generates the parameters/flags list in HTML format, along with '<module>.html', HTML header and footer the final HTML manual page is created and stored in the target binaries directory. In a separate process, the MAN format is generated from the complete HTML files.

See also ​http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Updating_GRASS_Documentation

HTML Pages

To avoid insertion of too complicated HTML tags (see also below), we strongly suggest to use a plain text editor rather than a HTML editor for editing.

Module Manual Pages

Place the documentation in HTML format into '<module>.html', where <module> is the name of the module. E.g. if the module is named r.example, the documentation file should be named r.example.html.

The easiest way to do this is to study an existing HTML page (to get the page style, e.g. vector/v.to.db/v.to.db.html​). With a few exceptions, header and footer are NOT allowed. You can add figures (PNG format); the figure name prefix should be the module name. See raster/r.terraflow/r.terraflow.html​ for an example.

A number of major sections should be present in each help page.

R = Required
S = Suggested
O = Optional

In recommended order:

R: <h2>DESCRIPTION</h2>
S: <h2>NOTE</H2>, <h2>NOTES</h2>
S: <h2>EXAMPLE</h2>, <h2>EXAMPLES</h2>
O: <h2>TODO</h2>
O: <h2>BUGS</h2>
O: <h2>REFERENCE</h2>, <h2>REFERENCES</h2>
R: <h2>SEE ALSO</h2>
R: <h2>AUTHOR</h2>, <h2>AUTHORS</h2>

Note that the parameter information is auto-generated upon compilation. This is done by running the module in a virtual session after compilation (see the output of 'make'). To subsequently verify the final HTML page, check the resulting HTML pages which will be stored with the name of the module.

Examples (please add some) should be coded like this: 

<div class="code"><pre>
v.to.db map=soils type=area option=area column=area_size unit=h
</pre></div>

The online WWW man pages are updated every Saturday (from SVN repository).

Supported HTML Tags

Since the MAN conversion of g.html2man is limited, please use no other HTML tags than: 

   <a> <b> <body> <br> <code> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em>
   <h2> <h3> <h4> <head> <hr> <i> <img> <li> <ol> <p>
   <pre> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <title> <tr> <ul>

Note that all tags have a closing tag except for <hr/>, <br/> and <p>. Use lower case forms.

Note that HTML is converted to man pages by tools/g.html2man/

Markup Protocol

Module names (i.e., v.category) should be emphasized with <em>, and boldface <b> for flags and parameter names. Shell commands, names, values, etc. should use <tt>. Emphasized phrases should use italics <i>. The SEE ALSO section of each page should also be alphabetized.

SVN Properties

When submitting new files to the repository set SVN properties, e.g. for HTML file

svn:mime-type : text/html
svn:keywords : Author Date Id
svn:eol-style : native

See ​http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.4/svn.advanced.props.html

You can also simply use this script: ​http://svn.osgeo.org/grass/grass-addons/tools/module_svn_propset.sh

Images

Compress PNG images with: 

optipng -o5 file.png
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