Edit the documentation

This documentation is created with Sphinx. Sphinx uses the reStructuredText (RST) markup format and adds some features like cross-referencing.

In this tutorial we will teach you how to edit the documentation locally on your PC. For that we will use Visual Studio Code with the reStructuredText extension, that will give you a (somewhat) live preview.

Hint

For small changes you can click /suggest edit button in the top right corner. GitHub however will only render the files as plain RST and miss all features that Sphinx adds.

1. Checkout the eCAL git repository:

   git clone https://github.com/eclipse-ecal/ecal.git
   

2. Download and install Visual Studio Code on your PC (it is available for Windows, Linux and macOS).

   https://code.visualstudio.com/

3. Download and install any Python (3.7 and up) and make sure it is added to the PATH

   • Windows:

     • https://www.python.org/downloads/

     • Choose “Add Python to PATH”

   • Ubuntu:

     sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-wheel
     

4. Navigate to the eCAL directory and install the python requirements with pip:

   • Windows:

     pip install wheel esbonio
     pip install -r doc/requirements.txt
     

   • Ubuntu:

     sudo pip3 install -r doc/requirements.txt
     sudo pip3 install esbonio
     

     Tip

     You can use a python venv if you like. Just (later) make sure to launch VS Code from the venv and set your python interpreter to the interpreter from the venv. To check that, press Ctrl + Shift + P, search for Python Interpreter and select the proper one.

5. Install the VS Code Extensions:

   • Python by Microsoft

   • reStructuredText by LeXStudio Inc.

     

6. Create the doc/rst/.vscode/settings.json and paste the following code:

   {
       "esbonio.sphinx.buildDir" : "${workspaceFolder}/_build/html",
       "esbonio.sphinx.confDir"  : "${workspaceFolder}",
       "esbonio.sphinx.srcDir"   : "${workspaceFolder}"
   }
   

7. Open the doc/rst/ directory in VS Code and click on an .rst file of your choice. Make sure that the statusbar displays “Sphinx” (not docutils). If is doesn’t, click on it and select “Sphinx”. Wait for esbonio to finish building.

   

   Important

   The reStructuredText extension may warn you about Syntax highlighting not being available. Install the extenstion and discard any warning it presents you (also check the bell icon in the statusbar).

   It sometimes happens that the extension will not launch, unless you have discarded all warnings.

8. Click the preview button in the upper right corner. The preview will be updated every time you save the .rst file.