stas at apache
Sep 15, 2001, 11:48 AM
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cvs commit: modperl-docs/admin README style.pod
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stas 01/09/15 11:48:43
Added: admin README style.pod
Log:
preparing the guidelines for the future documentation contributors
Revision Changes Path
1.1 modperl-docs/admin/README
Index: README
===================================================================
This directory includes various documents for the documentation writers
and maintainers. The following is the explanation of the purpose of
each file in this directory.
style.pod - please follow the guidelines in this doc when you
add new documentation.
1.1 modperl-docs/admin/style.pod
Index: style.pod
===================================================================
=head1 mod_perl Documentation proeject's Style Guide
=head1 Introduction
This document defines the style the authors should follow when writing
a documentation for the mod_perl documentation project.
To read this document in the proper way, run:
% perldoc ./style.pod
=head1 Formatting
The documentation format is a plain POD (Plain Old Documentation),
which then will be converted into HTML, XML, PS, PDF and other
formats. You can learn the syntax of this format from the I<perlpod>
manpage.
=head1 Conventions
Please try to use the following conventions when writing the docs:
=over
=item *
Keep the text width < 74 cols.
=item *
Please avoid leaving ^M (CR on the DOS platforms). Either use the
editor to remove these new line chars, or use Perl:
% perl -pi -e 's|\cM||' filename.pod
=item *
Use CE<lt>ModuleE<gt> for module names, directives, etc.
=item *
Use IE<lt>filenameE<gt> for filenames, URIs and things that are
generally written in italics
=item *
Use BE<lt>stressE<gt> for stressing things, but you should avoid using
this tag unless you think things are very important. Over-use of the
bold text reduces it's original intention -- make things stand out.
=item *
Use EE<lt>gtE<gt> for encoding C<$r-E<gt>filename> as in
CE<lt>$r-EE<lt>gtE<gt>filenameE<gt>. Note that with some Perl versions
C<pod2html(1)> and some other C<pod2*> are broken and don't correctly
interpret this tag.
=item *
URLs are left unmarked. Pod2Html automatically identifies and
highlights them. If later we would like to do that inline, we can have
an easy s/// one liner.
=item *
Linking between items in the same doc and across documents. Currently
use the technique explained in perlpod man page. It's not very
sophisticated, but we will have to think about some better technique.
=item *
Command line examples. Please use the following prompts to be
consistent.
I<user> mode prompt:
ai% ls -l
I<root> mode prompt:
ai# ls -l
(ai for A.I., short and sweet)
=item *
Titles and subtitles:
Use the head tags:
=head(1,2,3...)
=item *
Code examples:
A new pod tag:
=example 1.1 This is a title
becomes:
<p><i>Example 1.1: This is a title</i></p>
=item *
Figures (images):
A new pod tag:
=figure figure1.1.png This is a title
becomes:
<p><center><img src="figure1.1.png"></center></p>
<p><center><b>Figure 1.1: This is a title</b></center></p>
The index is extracted automatically from the file name.
=item *
Footnotes. These aren't defined in the current perlpod yet. So please
use [F] footnote [/F] semantics and later we will come up with some
way to make it a correct footnote.
=item *
Sidebars. Just like footnotes - it's not defined yet. Use [S] sidebar
[/S] for now.
=item *
Paragraphs.
Try to keep the paragraphs not too long as it is hard to read them if
they are too long. Follow common sense for that.
Paragraphs are separated by an empty new line. Please make sure that
you don't leave any spaces on this line. Otherwise the two paragraphs
will be rendered as one. Especially remember to put a new empty line
between text and code snippets.
=item *
Code snippets
As you know in POD if you want something to be left untouched by the
translator, you have to insert at least one space before each
line. Please use the 2 space indent to specify the text snippet and
for the code examples please use the 4 spaces indentation. No tabs
please.
Also remember that if the code snippet includes empty lines, you
should prefix these with 2 spaces as well, so the examples will be
continuous after they get converted into other formats.
Here is an example:
my $foo;
for (1..10) {
$foo += $_;
if ($foo > 6) {
print "foo\n";
}
else {
print "bar\n";
}
}
From this example you can learn other style details that you should
follow when writing docs.
=item *
Automatic code extraction
The documentation includes numerous code snippets and complete
scripts, you don't want the reader to type them in, so we want to make
all the code available to the reader in a separated files, located in
each chapter's parent's directory (e.g. ch2/ex2.pl)
Well at the beginning you might think that it might be a good idea to
keep all the code in sync with the doc, but very soon you will find
out that you change the code in the text and move the chapters and
sections around, which makes it impossible to maintain the external
source code.
So what we have to do (and I haven't made it yet) is to use a
convention for the code to be automatically extracted, e.g.:
file:/example.pl
----------------
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use CGI;
my $q = new CGI;
print "Hi";
So as I've said before we must not forget to add indentation to empty
lines with no code in them, so that the parser picks up the whole
code, removes the header with the filename and separator, puts back
the code itself, saves it to the filename written at the top, and
places it into the same directory name the text is located in. (Well
it can be a separate tree for the code). If there are real empty
lines, only part of the script will be saved, which will make the
release broken. Another approach is to add some tail (ending token),
but it's a mess I think. I develop the text using I<cperl-mode.el> in
xemacs which shows all spaces not followed by any text - this helps a
lot!!!
=back
=head1 Review process
If you want to send a review of a document to the document maintainer,
please follow the following guidelines:
=head2 Diff or not Diff?
Since the text is changing a lot it's much harder to apply patches,
especially if you happen to make a patch against an older version.
Therefore we have found that it's much better for the docs maintainers
to receive the whole document which is already corrected the way you
think it should be and possible extra comments, as explained in the
next section.
Once we receive such a document we can use visual diff programs to
make an easy merge, even if the document that you have modified has
been changed since then. I suggest to use emacs's C<Ediff> module for
visual merges. I'm sure other editors provide similar functionality.
[.Stas: if you know about these functionalities, please let me know so
we can share the knowledge with others who don't use emacs.]
=head2 Adding Inline Remarks
=over 4
=item *
TODO semantics:
I've gotten used to (META: do something) approach since the old days
when I read the linux documentations. So you will see lots of META
tags scattered around the sources. It makes it easy to see what things
aren't yet complete and mark things that we want to work on later. So
please use something like:
[META: this should be completed]
=item *
Review Comments:
If you review some document and you want to comment on something, just
embed a paragraph with your comments enclosed in [] and with your name
prepended. E.g:
[.Stas: This document needs a review.
But it looks OK after all.]
if your first name is a common one, please use the last name as well,
or some other way to easily identify you so the maintainer of the
document can contact you for an additional questions.
=head1 Maintainers
Maintainer is the person(s) you should contact with updates,
corrections and patches.
Stas Bekman E<lt>stas [at] stason<gt>
=head1 Authors
Stas Bekman E<lt>stas [at] stason<gt>
=cut
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