Contribute

Contribute¶

I wrote the ZeroDiff docs using mkdocs and committed it all to github. This setup not only generates nice-looking, searchable documentation, it makes it possible to share/fork it so that ZeroDiff can be a community effort.

The mkdocs system is a self-contained, Python-based documentation tool that uses Twitter Bootstrap and scripting to generate high-quality HTML-based documentation using simple markdown files. The cool thing about mkdocs is that the repo is both the documentation set and place to generate the static, production site. The top-level mkdocs.yml file shows the documentation tree structure and configurations. If you edit this file, it will be pretty easy to see what markdown (*.md) files you need to edit in order to change the docs you want changed.

Installing Python and mkdocs.¶

Please see the mkdocs website to see how to install Python and the mkdocs tools. It's pretty simple and easy to do this, but it's out-of-scope to explain that here.

Editing the docs¶

From a terminal session change to the top-level directory

    >cd ~/git/zerodiff
    >mkdocs serve

Now from your browser go to the URL: http://127.0.0.1:8000

As you edit the markdown files, mkdocs automatically updates the website in realtime so that you can review your changes.

Generating the Static Documentation Website¶

Once you've completed all of your edits, you need to generate the static site (not committed to git because "./site" is in .gitignore).

    >cd ~/git/zerodiff
    >mkdocs build

This will generate a static documentation site in the directory ~/git/zerodiff/site. You can validate the site by killing the "mkdocs serve" process and starting a simple Python=-based web server in that directory:

    >cd ~/git/zerodiff/site
    >python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000

Now from your browser go to the URL: http://127.0.0.1:8000

Commit the Static Site to Github Project Pages ("gh-pages")¶

    >cd ~/git/zerodiff
    >mkdocs gh-deploy --clean

This command will generate the static site and push it to the gh-pages branch so that it shows up as a searchable, shred website (on github). The url will be https://your_github_id.github.io/zerodiff/.