Before you start ensure you have
- Created a GitHub account
- Signed the Particular Contributor License Agreement.
There are two approaches to contributing.
For simple changes the GitHub web UI should suffice.
- Find the page you want to edit on http://docs.particular.net/.
- Click the
Improve this doc. This will automatically fork the project so you can edit the file. - Make the changes you require. Ensure you verify your changes in the
Previewtab. - Add a description of your changes.
- Click
Propose File Changes.
For more complex changes you should fork and then submit a pull request. This is useful if you are proposing multiple file changes
- Fork on GitHub.
- Clone your fork locally.
- Work on your feature.
- Push the up to GitHub.
- Send a Pull Request on GitHub.
For more information see Collaborating on GitHub especially using GitHub pull requests.
All content files (.md,.png,.jpg etc) and directories must be lower case.
All links pointing to them must be lower case.
To delimiter file names use a dash (-).
Each document has a header. It is enclosed by --- and is defined in a YAML document format.
The GitHub UI will correctly render YAML.
For example:
---
title: Auditing With NServiceBus
summary: Provides built-in message auditing for every endpoint.
tags:
- Auditing
- Forwarding Messages
related:
- samples/custom-checks/monitoring3rdparty
redirects:
- nservicebus/overview
---
title: Auditing With NServiceBus
Required. Used for the web page title tag <head><title>, displayed in the page content, and displayed in search results.
summary: Provides built-in message auditing for every endpoint.
Required. Used for the meta description tag (<meta name="description") and displaying on the search results.
tags:
- Auditing
- Forwarding Messages
Optional. Used to flag the article as being part of a group of articles.
Tags are rendered in the articles content with the full list of tags being rendered at http://docs.particular.net/tags. Untagged articles will be rendered here http://docs.particular.net/tags/untagged
Tags are interpreted in two ways.
- For inclusion of URLs:
- Tag are lower case
- Spaces are replaced with dashes (
-)
- For display purposes:
- Tags are lower case
- Dashes (
-) are replaced with dashes spaces
Hidden
hidden: true
Causes two things:
- Stop search engines from finding the page using a
<meta name="robots" content="noindex" />. - Prevents the page from being found in the docs search.
related:
- samples/custom-checks/monitoring3rdparty
A list of related pages for this page. These links will be rendered at the bottom of the page. Can include both samples and articles and they will be grouped as such when rendered in html.
redirects:
- nservicebus/overview
When renaming an existing article to a new name, please add the redirects: section in the article header and specify the previous name for the article. If the old Url is linked anywhere, when the user clicks on it, the new renamed article will automatically be served.
- Values specified in the
redirectssection must be lower cased. - Multiple values can be specified for the redirects, same as
tags. - Values are fully qualified
Should be the url relative to the root with no beginning or trailing slash padding and no .md.
- In the following example, whenever the urls
/servicecontrol/sc-sior/servicecontrol/debugging-servicecontrolare being requested, the given article will be rendered.
---
title: ServiceInsight Interaction
summary: 'Using ServiceInsight Together'
tags:
- ServiceInsight
- Invocation
- Debugging
redirects:
- serviceinsight/si
- serviceinsight/debugging
related:
- samples/azure/shared-host
---
The menu is a YAML text document stored at menu/menu.yaml.
The directory structure where a .md exists is used to derive the URL for that document.
So a file existing at nservicebus\logging\nlog.md will have a resultant URL of http://docs.particular.net/nservicebus/logging/nlog.
One exception to this rule is when a page is named index.md. In this case the index.md is omitted in the resultant URL and only the directory structure is used.
So a file existing at nservicebus\logging\index.md will have a resultant URL of http://docs.particular.net/nservicebus/logging/.
Like any page an Index page can include Related pages. However Index pages will, by default, have all sibling and child pages included in the the list of Related pages. This is effectively a recursive walk of the file system for the directory the given index.md exists in.
Links to other documentation pages should be relative and contain the .md extension.
The .md allows links to work inside the GitHub web UI. The .md will be trimmed when they are finally rendered.
Given the case of editing a page located at \nservicebus\page1.md:
To link to the file nservicebus\page2.md, use [Page 2 Text](Page2.md).
To link to the file \servicecontrol\page3.md, use [Page 3 Text](/servicecontrol/page3.md).
Don't link to index.md pages, instead link to the directory. So link to /nservicebus/logging and NOT /nservicebus/logging/index.md
The site is rendered using GitHub Flavored Markdown
For editing markdown on your desktop (after cloning locally with Git) try MarkdownPad.
Ensure you enable GitHub Flavored Markdown (Offline) by going to
Tools > Options > Markdown > Markdown Processor > GitHub Flavored Markdown (Offline)
Or click in the bottom left no the M icon to "hot-switch"
Don't render YAML Front-Matter by going to
Tools > Options > Markdown > Markdown Settings
And checking Ignore YAML Front-matter
- Samples are located here https://github.com/Particular/docs.particular.net/tree/master/samples.
- They are linked to from the home page and are rendered here http://docs.particular.net/samples/.
- Any directory in that structure with a sample.md will be considered a "root for a sample" or Sample Root.
- A Sample Root may not contain an sample.md in subdirectories.
- Each directory under the Sample Root will be rendered on the site as a downloadable zip with the directory name being the filename.
- A sample.md can use snippets from within its Sample Root but not snippets defined outside that root.
Startup projects are set to "all startable projects" in the solution. This is done via https://github.com/ParticularLabs/SetStartupProjects. If you want to control the default projects start then add a file named DefaultStartupProjects.txt in the same directory (as the solution file) with relative paths to the project files you would like to use for startup projects.
For example if the solution contains two endpoints and you only want to start Endpoint1 the the content of DefaultStartupProjects.txt would be:
Endpoint1\Endpoint1.csproj
- Avoid using screen shots in samples as they cause extra effort when the sample needs to be updated.
- Samples should illustrate a feature or scenario with as few moving pieces as possible. For example if the sample is "illustrating IOC with MVC" then "adding signalr" to that sample will only cause confusion. In general the fewer NuGets you need to get the point across the better.
- Do not "document things inside a sample". A sample is "to show how something is used" not to document it. Instead update the appropriate documentation page and link to it. As a general rule if you add any content to a sample, where that guidance could possible be applicable to other samples, then that guidance should probably exist in a documentation page.
At the moment the best way to get started on a sample is to copy an existing one. Ideally one that has similarities to what you are trying to achieve.
A good sample to start with is the Default Logging Sample, since all it does is enable logging. You can then add the various moving pieces to your copy.
Avoid using screen shots in sample unless it adds significant value over what can be expressed in text. The have the following problems
- Screenshots are more time consuming to update than text
- Not search-able
- Are prone to resulting an in inconsistent feel as different people take screenshot at different sizes, different zoom levels and with different color schemes for the app in question
- Screenshots add significantly to the page load time.
The most common misuse of screenshots is when capturing console output. DO NOT DO THIS. Put the text inside a formatted code section instead.
Markdown includes are pulled into the document prior to passing the content through the markdown conversion.
Add a file anywhere in the docs repository that is suffixed with .include.md. So for example the file might be named theKey.include.md.
Add the following to the markdown include: theKey
There is a some code located here https://github.com/Particular/docs.particular.net/tree/master/Snippets. Any directory containing a _excludesnippets file will have its snippets ignored.
File extensions scanned for snippets include:
.config.cs.ps.cscfg.csdef.html.sql.txt.xml
Any code wrapped in a convention based comment will be picked up. The comment needs to start with startcode which is followed by the key.
// startcode ConfigureWith
var configure = Configure.With();
// endcode
For non-code snippets apply a similar approach as in code, using comments appropriate for a given file type. For plain-text files an extra empty line is required before endcode tag.
| Tag | XML-based | PowerShell | SQL script | Plain text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open | <!-- startcode name --> |
# startcode name |
-- startcode name |
startcode name |
| Content | ||||
| Close | <!-- endcode --> |
# endcode |
-- endcode |
endcode |
Any code wrapped in a named C# region will be picked up. The name of the region is used as the key.
#region ConfigureWith
var configure = Configure.With();
#endregion
Snippets are versioned, these versions are used to render snippets in a tabbed manner.
Versions follow the nuget versioning convention. If either Minor or Patch is not defined they will be rendered as an x. So for example Version 3.3 would be rendered as 3.3.x and Version 3 would be rendered as 3.x.
Snippet versions are derived in two ways
Appending a version to the end of a snippet definition as follows.
#region ConfigureWith 4.5
var configure = Configure.With();
#endregion
Or version range
#region MySnippetName [1.0,2.0]
My Snippet Code
#endregion
If a snippet has no version defined then the version will be derived by walking up the directory tree until if finds a directory that is suffixed with _Version or _VersionRange. For example
- Snippets extracted from
docs.particular.net\Snippets\Snippets_4\TheClass.cswould have a default version of(≥ 4.0.0 && < 5.0.0). - Snippets extracted from
docs.particular.net\Snippets\Snippets_4\Special_4.3\TheClass.cswould have a default version of(≥ 4.3.0 && < 5.0.0). - Snippets extracted from
docs.particular.net\Snippets\Special_(1.0,2.0)\TheClass.cswould have a default version of(> 1.0.0 && < 2.0.0).
If a file named prerelease.txt exists in a versioned directory then a -pre will be added to the version.
So for example if there is a directory docs.particular.net\Snippets\Snippets_6\ and it contains a prerelease.txt file then the version will be (≥ 6.0.0-pre)
If the prerelease.txt contains text then that text will be used for the pre-release text.
So for example if prerelease.txt contains beta then the version will be (≥ 6.0.0-beta)
The keyed snippets can then be used in any documentation .md file by adding the text
snippet: KEY
Then snippets with the key (all versions) will be rendered in a tabbed manner. If there is only a single version then it will be rendered as a simple code block with no tabs.
For example
To configure the bus call
snippet: ConfigureWith
The resulting markdown will be
To configure the bus call
```
var configure = Configure.With();
```
The code snippets will do smart trimming of snippet indentation.
For example given this snippet.
••#region DataBus ••var configure = Configure.With() ••••.FileShareDataBus(databusPath); ••#endregion
The leading two spaces (••) will be trimmed and the result will be
var configure = Configure.With()
••.FileShareDataBus(databusPath)
The same behavior will apply to leading tabs.
If tabs and spaces are mixed there is no way for the snippets to work out what to trim.
So given this snippet
••#region DataBus ••var configure = Configure.With() ➙➙.FileShareDataBus(databusPath); ••#endregion
Where ➙ is a tab.
The resulting markdown will be will be
var configure = Configure.With() ➙➙.FileShareDataBus(databusPath)
Note none of the tabs have been trimmed.
This is done for two reasons
- Since the snippets are viewing inline to a page they lack much of the context of a full code file such as using statements. To remove the ambiguity explicit variable declaration is being used
- It makes it much easier to build the docs search engine when the types being used on a page can be inferred by the snippets used.
This is enforced by Resharper rules.
The code used by snippets and samples is compiled on the build server. The compilation is done against the versions of the packages referenced in the samples and snippets projects. When a snippet doesn't compile the build will break so make sure snippets are compiling properly. Samples and snippets should not reference unreleased NuGets.
There are some scenarios where documentation may require unreleased or beta NuGets. For example when creating a PR against documentation for a feature that is not yet released. In this case it is ok for a PR to reference an unreleased NuGet and have that PR fail to build on the build server. Once the NuGets have been released that PR can be merged.
In some cases it may be necessary to have merged documentation for unreleased features. In this case the NuGet should be pushed to Particular feed on MyGet. The feed is included by default in the Snippets nuget.config.
Sometimes is necessary to draw attention to items you want to call out in a document.
This is achieved through bootstrap alerts http://getbootstrap.com/components/#alerts
There are several keys each of which map to a different colored alert
| Key | Color |
|---|---|
SUCCESS |
green |
NOTE or INFO |
blue |
WARNING |
yellow |
DANGER |
red |
BETA |
yellow |
BETA notes will also be prefixed with some text about it being a pre-release API.
Keys can be used in two manners
This can be done with the following syntax
KEY: the note text.
For example this
NOTE: Some sample note text.
Will be rendered as
<p class="alert alert-info">
Some sample note text.
</p>
Sometimes it is necessary to group markdown elements inside a note. This can be done with the following syntax
{{KEY:
Inner markdown elements
}}
For example this
{{NOTE:
* Point one
* Point Two
}}
Would be rendered as
<p class="alert alert-info">
* Point One
* Point Two
</p>
The first (and all top level) headers in a .md page should be a h2 ie ##. With sub-headers under it being h2 are h3 etc.
- Add an empty after a heading
- Add an empty line between paragraphs
One addition to standard markdown is the auto creation of anchors for headings.
So if you have a heading like this:
## My Heading
it will be converted to this:
<h2>
<a name="my-heading"/>
My Heading
</h2>
Which means elsewhere in the page you can link to it with this:
[Goto My Heading](#My-Heading)
Images can be added using the following markdown syntax
With the minimal syntax being
Image size can be controlled by adding a the text width=x to the end of the title
For example
With the minimal syntax being
This will result in the image being resized with the following parameters
width="x" height="auto"
It will also wrap the image in a clickable lightbox so the full image can be accessed.
Sequence diagram images are generated using https://bramp.github.io/js-sequence-diagrams/ online service. Keep the source text used to generate sequence image in the document as an HTML comment to allow future modifications in case images need to be re-generated.
- Ticks are done with
✔✔ - Crosses are done with
✖✖
For consistency, prefer American English.