Contributing to Juju docs
× Caution! These older versions of Juju documentation are no longer maintained and are provided for reference only. See docs.jujucharms.com for the current, supported documentation.

Contributing to Juju documentation

Juju documentation is hosted on GitHub and published on jujucharms.com. Its source documents are easy to understand and edit due to the format used: standard GitHub Flavored Markdown. Conventions have been added to support doc features such as foldouts and admonishments (explained below).

Here are a few cheat sheets for writing in GFM.

Documentation bugs

Bugs for documentation issues are submitted here:

https://github.com/juju/docs/issues/new

and listed here:

https://github.com/juju/docs/issues

How to contribute text

Here are the basic steps necessary to get a change published on the website:

The source documents are located in the src directory. From there each language is separated into its own directory by language code. For instance, English is under src/en.

Once submitted, a Docs team member will review your work, suggest improvements, and eventually merge it with the master branch. Don't forget to review your work before submission!

Metadata

Each file has the potential to include metadata for various purposes. At the moment this is used to provide a title element, and also to implement a limited form of todo list items. Metadata is written as key : value pairs AT THE VERY TOP of the document. E.g.

Title: Contributing to Juju docs
TODO: add section on metadata
      spellcheck everything

# Title of document

Well written text goes here blah blah

As you can see, the TODO metadata can have more than one item, as long as additional items are indented by at least 4 spaces directly after the previous one. The Metadata section ends immediately there is a blank line, and the normal document text can begin.

Sections

All the text is organised into sections. These are auto-generated, there is nothing extra you need to do:

# <h1> equivalent
## <h2> equivalent
### <h3> equivalent

Code blocks

Create a code block using the code-fencing markup of three backticks, preferably followed by the type of code:

 ```bash
 juju do something
 juju status
 ```

The most common "types" used in this documentation are: bash, yaml, json, and no-highlight.

Inline code

Use a backtick to inline commands and other literals:

Notes, warnings, callouts, and admonishments

Callouts are used to notify the user of additional information or warn them of potential pitfalls. This will create a notification resembling the following in the docs:

callout

To implement this callout, use the following syntax:

!!! Note:
    If you want to get more information on what is actually happening, or
    to help resolve problems, you can add the `--show-log` switch to the juju
    command to get verbose output.

Foldouts

When a page contains a high volume of information that would otherwise require a table of contents, or similar method of quick navigation, a foldout can be used. This will create a collapsed header which, when clicked, will expand to display all the content below it.

^# Header
  Content can be multi-paragraphed and will be sent through the Markdown parser

  as long as content is continually indented under the header.

Adding pages

Adding a page (file) to the documentation requires the altering of src/navigation.tpl. Doing so will insert an entry into the left navigation pane which will allow a visitor to discover the new page.

Add the page with the following format:

<li class="sub"><a href="charms-scaling.html">Scaling Services</a></li>;

in the appropriate section. Please make sure you submit a Pull Request with a description of the new page and why it is needed!

Adding screenshots

When adding screenshots place them in htmldocs/media. To reference them in your page use the syntax ![description](media/picture.png)

Testing or deploying locally

First you need to generate the docs from the Markdown. In the root directory first get the dependencies and make the docs:

make sysdeps
make

Note: You only need to make sysdeps once, after that you'll have all the dependencies you'll need to build the docs going forward.

The documentation makes use of Javascript for some functionality, so in order to test the docs properly you will need to have a web server set up. See Ubuntu and Apache. The DocumentRoot should be the htmldocs directory:

sudo cp -R htmldocs /var/www/htmldocs

You can then point your web browser at your local machine (127.0.0.1/htmldocs) to view the files.

Alternatively, you can use Python to start a simple HTTP server on the docs directory. Navigate to the /htmldocs directory of the docs and run the following:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer

Style and language

We are putting together a more comprehensive style guide, but for the moment the following are good guidelines:

  • Resist being overly formal. The documentation should be like having a conversation with a knowledgeable friend
  • Remember the readers are users not necessarily Juju developers
  • Spell things properly! (see below)
  • We use British English (en-GB). See language details, including a comparison with American English (en-US).
  • If including links or examples, double-check they actually work
  • We enforce 80 columns for every text file to keep it readable. Here are instructions for the vim and emacs editors.