XOD Documentation

This repository contains the source of XOD documentation which is served at https://xod.io/docs/

Structure overview

All content sources are under ./docs directory. Each subdirectory (and the root ./docs as well) correspond to a single page on https://xod.io/docs/. If a user requests https://xod.io/docs/foo/bar/ the system looks for a ./docs/foo/bar/README.md file.

The README.md is an entry point for each page. It’s a file written in Markdown syntax so that the authors can focus on content rather than on layout issues. Nevertheless, README.md may include raw HTML and Handlebars template mixins for cases when a page is hard to write in plain Markdown. As you might expect, README.md may also refer to images and other asset files located next to it.

Translations

Pages can contain translations to other languages. README.md holds the English version whereas nearby DE.md, IT.md, RU.md, etc hold its translations. The site chooses its source depending on the language drop-down selection falling back to English if no translation is found for a particular page.

See Analog sensors guide for an example.

YAML data

Some pages like the Supported Hardware present highly structured data (see how it renders on xod.io) which would be hard to maintain using plain Markdown/HTML.

In such cases, a YAML file to hold the data can be created. The structured object described in it is available to the Markdown source with a little template magic:

{{#each index}}
<h2>{{ section }}</h2>
{{#each parts}}
<div>
  {{ part }} {{ kind }} {{#if vendor}}by {{ vendor }}{{/if}}.
</div>
{{/each}} {{/each}}

Note the {{ xxx }} placeholders. They are Handlebars template tags. Any .yaml file put next to README.md is available by its basename for templating (index for index.yaml in the example above).

Markdown formatting

To keep all source files consistent and easy to maintain several formatting rules apply. Notably, all Markdown files should be word-wrapped to be no wider than 80 characters.

Instead of describing all the rules and checking them on review, they are enforced automatically using Prettier. If you have done a significant portion of work, run yarn prettier to format your Markdown correctly.

Front matter

One thing you’ll see in Markdown sources is a block at the very top fenced with ---. This is metadata used by the site engine:

---
title: Hello World
version: 1.2.3
---

The title field is passed to a browser to render the page’s <title/>.

The version is a semver of the current page content used to understand whether a translation lags behind the master version or not. An increment in the patch part (3) denotes typo fixes and wording improvements which require no translation updates. A bump of minor part (2) denotes additions and refinements which are desirable to see in translated versions. A change in the major part (1) denotes a total rewrite. If the version field is absent, it is implied to be 1.0.0.

Maintenance

$ yarn prettier:all
# Format *all* Markdown in the repo

$ yarn prettier README.md CONTRIBUTING.md
# Format only files specified

$ yarn prettier-check:all
# Dry-check all Markdown in the repo

License

All content is available under a Creative Commons license.

How to contribute

Any help with fixing the grammar, translating, resolving ambiguities, adding references, and general improvement is much appreciated. Refer to CONTRIBUTING.md to learn how.

xodio / xod-docs