################################ Making changes to the User Guide ################################ .. contents:: :local: Overview ======== The NEMO User guide is a collection of html web-pages that are constructed via the python ``sphinx`` package from ReStructured Text (rst) files using the ``Read The Docs`` theme. This part of the guide is for developers who wish to edit or add to the guide and for maintainers who wish to make those changes live. These pages will: * Explain where the source material is located within the GitLab repository * Describe how developers can clone the material, edit and build locally. * Explain how live html versions can be updated by maintainers (officers) These pages will not discuss the ReStructured Text syntaxes or directives themselves. There are plenty of on-line resources to help with this and the NEMO user-guide ``rst`` files themselves already contains examples of most of the constructs you are likely to need. Simply find a close match to the type of layout you are after, cut-and-paste the section and change the content. .. _LocationGuide: Location of the source material =============================== .. image:: _static/repo_layout.png :align: center The source material for the user guide appears to be located in multiple locations in the NEMO GitLab repository. Two ``User guide`` projects are shown in the systematic above. One as a project in the ``Documentation`` subgroup of the ``NEMO Workspace`` group and one as a project in the ``Sites`` group. There is also a ``Draft User guide`` project under ``Sites``, but more about that later. The apparent duplication is intentional and serves to separate the files that any developer can edit from the copies on the publically accessible Web server. The public pages are deployed to a static website by a GitLab Pages server that runs on projects in the ``Sites`` group. For security, only maintainers (i.e. NEMO officers) can create and edit projects in the ``Sites`` group. However, the projects under ``Sites`` only include the source material as a submodule reference to the ``NEMO Workspace > Documentation > User guide`` project. All developers are able to create issues and merge requests and commit to branches of ``NEMO Workspace > Documentation > User guide``. Hence, all developers are able to contribute to the user guide. Maintainers can review and accept merge requests like any other development. Any merged material will only become live html once an officer has updated the submodule reference in the appropriate ``Sites`` project. This may appear confusing but is relatively simple in practise. The next few sections illustrate the steps needed to create an issue, merge request and branch, make a change, review the change locally, push changes back, have the changes merged and ultimately have the html versions created and deployed. The example used for illustration is the creation of this very section of the user guide. .. _IssueGuide: Preparing to edit the guide =========================== Preparation follows the same procedure as any development. I.e. create an issue and linked merge request in the GUI for the ``NEMO Workspace > Documentation > User guide`` project at `User guide`_ .. _User guide: https://forge.nemo-ocean.eu/nemo/doc/guide The following images illustrate the process for the changes that created this section of the guide: * Create a new issue (use the ``users_guide`` label) .. image:: _static/guide_issue.png :align: center :width: 90% * Include a brief description .. image:: _static/guide_issue2.png :align: center :width: 90% * Create a linked merge request and branch .. image:: _static/guide_merge_request.png :align: center :width: 90% .. _CloneGuide: Cloning and editing the guide ============================= With the merge request and new branch in place, the project can be cloned to your local machine for editing: .. code-block:: bash git clone --recurse-submodules git@forge.nemo-ocean.eu:nemo/doc/guide.git cd guide git branch -a git switch 10-add-developers-guide-section-on-how-to-make-changes-to-the-user-guide Note the namelists and gallery subdirectories are submodules. The contents of these are unlikely to change often (at least any parts actually used in the user-guide) but, if you need to update the references then descend into the appropriate directory and issue the update command; e.g.: .. code-block:: bash cd namelists git submodule update --init --force --remote git add namelists Otherwise, just edit or add to the ``source`` directory content as required. For example: .. code-block:: bash vi source/index.rst vi source/editguide.rst cp ~/Pictures/guide_*.png source/_static/ cp ~/Pictures/repo_layout.png source/_static/ git add source/_static/guide_*.png source/_static/repo_layout.png git add source/index.rst source/editguide.rst The ability to preview your changes (and hence check for build-time errors) is an essential requirement of the development process. The next section explains how to set up and use a suitable environment. .. _BuildGuide: Building and previewing ======================= To build and preview locally will require: * A python environment with ``sphinx`` and a few ``sphinx extensions`` * A browser with access to the local filesystem Both requirements are easily satisfied on most Unix-based operating systems. The `Sphinx installation page`_ lists many ways of installing ``sphinx``. Perhaps the easiest being via ``Anaconda`` or ``Miniconda``: .. _Sphinx installation page: https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/installation.html .. code-block:: bash conda install sphinx The required extensions are not always available from the default conda server but can be easily obtained from alternatives or installed using pip: .. code-block:: bash conda install sphinx_rtd_theme conda install -c conda-forge sphinxcontrib-bibtex python3 -m pip install sphinxext-remoteliteralinclude As an example, these commands on a Macbook resulted in the following sphinx install: .. code-block:: bash conda list | grep sphinx sphinx 5.0.2 py37hecd8cb5_0 sphinx_rtd_theme 0.4.3 pyhd3eb1b0_0 sphinxcontrib-applehelp 1.0.2 pyhd3eb1b0_0 sphinxcontrib-bibtex 2.5.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge sphinxcontrib-devhelp 1.0.2 pyhd3eb1b0_0 sphinxcontrib-htmlhelp 2.0.0 pyhd3eb1b0_0 sphinxcontrib-jsmath 1.0.1 pyhd3eb1b0_0 sphinxcontrib-qthelp 1.0.3 pyhd3eb1b0_0 sphinxcontrib-serializinghtml 1.1.5 pyhd3eb1b0_0 sphinxext-remoteliteralinclude 0.4.0 pypi_0 pypi With a similar and correctly configured sphinx installation, building the html files from the rst files is as simple as: .. code-block:: bash make html from the top guide directory. A successful build should look something like: .. code-block:: bash make html sphinx-build -b html -d build/doctrees source build/html Running Sphinx v5.0.2 loading pickled environment... checking bibtex cache... up to date done building [mo]: targets for 0 po files that are out of date building [html]: targets for 0 source files that are out of date updating environment: [config changed ('extlinks')] 18 added, 1 changed, 0 removed reading sources... [100%] zooms looking for now-outdated files... none found pickling environment... done checking consistency... done preparing documents... done writing output... [100%] zooms generating indices... genindex done writing additional pages... search done copying images... [100%] _static/agrif_sponge.png copying static files... done copying extra files... done dumping search index in English (code: en)... done dumping object inventory... done build succeeded. The HTML pages are in build/html. Build finished. The HTML pages are in build/html. The results can be previewed by opening the ``build/html/index.html`` file in your local browser. In my case this is: .. code-block:: bash file:///Users/acc/guide/build/html/index.html .. note:: The rendered page may look slightly different to the exact same version eventually built on the NEMO GitLab server. Compare, for example the two images of the landing page below. The html files are identical but the left-hand image is read from the local disk; the right-hand image is as the live user guide is displayed - **in the same browser!** Given this, local previewing should be used to check content and functionality without too much effort on fine tuning of precise layout. .. image:: _static/landing_views.png :align: center .. _FinalPush: Send for review and merging =========================== After completing your edits and successfully previewing, push back the changes: .. code-block:: bash git add source/_static/guide_*.png source/_static/repo_layout.png git add source/_static/landing_views.png git add source/index.rst source/editguide.rst git commit -m'Added section on how to edit the user-guide. Successfully built and previewed locally' git push origin In the GUI, go to the merge request page and ``mark as ready``. Contact the reviewer and have the changes approved and merged. Your role as developer is now complete (pending future updates). .. _PublishGuide: Publishing a new draft user guide ================================= Once the new material has been merged, a maintainer can chose to update the live pages by updating the submodule link in one of the ``Sites`` projects. In most cases this will be the ``Draft User guide`` project since the ``User guide`` project should only change when a new code is released. The act of pushing the change back to the GitLab server will trigger a pipeline that builds and deploys the html files: .. code-block:: bash git clone git@forge.nemo-ocean.eu:sites/draft-guide cd draft-guide git submodule update --init --force --remote git add guide git commit -m "update of submodule link" git push origin Once both stages (test and deploy) of the pipeline have successfully completed, the new html pages will be available at `https://sites.nemo-ocean.io/draft-guide/`_ .. _https://sites.nemo-ocean.io/draft-guide/: https://sites.nemo-ocean.io/draft-guide/ Publishing a new user guide =========================== The same procedure is required when updating the release version of the user guide, with the additional recommendation that the commit message mentions which release this commit is designed for (and make sure this matches ``versions`` as set in ``source/conf.py``): Updating of the user guide is expected to occur much less often than updating of the draft user guide. .. code-block:: bash git clone git@forge.nemo-ocean.eu:sites/user-guide cd user-guide git submodule update --init --force --remote git add guide git commit -m "update of submodule link for release X.X.X" git push origin Once both stages (test and deploy) of the pipeline have successfully completed, the new html pages will be available at `https://sites.nemo-ocean.io/user-guide/`_ .. _https://sites.nemo-ocean.io/user-guide/: https://sites.nemo-ocean.io/user-guide/