This is a work in progress
See the Documentation README for information on setting up your documentation build environment
See reStructuredText Primer for a complete Sphinx/RST markup reference.
This is the official style guide for the ownCloud Administration and User manuals. Please follow these conventions for consistency, and easier proofreading and copyediting.
When you are writing your text, make it as literal and specific as possible. Put
yourself in the place of the person who is using ownCloud and looking for
instructions on performing a task. Don't make them guess, but spell
out every step in order, and tell exactly what buttons to click or what form
fields to fill out. Give complete information; for example, when configuring a
timeout value be sure to say if it is in seconds or some other value. Say
config.php rather than "the configuration file". When you are describing
features of a GUI administration form use the exact literal names of buttons,
form fields, and menus. Specify if menus are dropdown, right-click,
left-click, or mouseover.
Use lowercase filenames with underscores, for example file_name_config.rst.
There are many ways to markup headings and subheadings. This is the official ownCloud way. Use title case. Three levels is enough; if you find that you want more, then re-think the organization of your text:
============== Page Title, h1 ============== Subhead, h2 ----------- Subhead, h3 ^^^^^^^^^^^
This is how they render:
Elements in a GUI configuration form are in bold, and should be described as literally as possible, so that your description matches what your reader sees on the screen. For example, on the User listing page describe the various elements like these examples:
**Username** field **Password** field **Groups** dropdown menu **Create** button **Full Name** field **Quota** dropdown menu
This is how they render:
Username field
Password field
Groups dropdown menu
Create button
Full Name field
Quota dropdown menu
Figure 1: The ownCloud user listing and administration page.
Use double-backticks for inline code and command examples:
``sudo -u www-data php occ files:scan --help`` ``maintenance:install``
This is how they render:
sudo -u www-data php occ files:scan --help
maintenance:install
When you are giving hyperlinks as examples, use double-backticks rather than creating a live hyperlink:
``https://example.com``
Use lowercase with hyphens for image names, for example image-name.png.
Images should be in .png format. Keep your screenshots focused on the items you are describing. When you need an image of something large like a configuration form on the ownCloud admin page, narrow your Web browser to fold the fields into a smaller space, because a long skinny graphic is not very readable. Think square.
All images must have alt tags, which are brief and descriptive, and figure numbers. Sphinx RST markup does not have a tag for figure numbers, so you must use the caption element. You may use simple numbering like "Figure 1, Figure 2", or add a caption. Captions must follow a blank line and be italicized, like this example:
.. figure:: images/users-config.png :alt: User listings and administration page. *Figure 1: The ownCloud user listing and administration page.*
Images must go into a sub-directory of the directory containing your manual page. Currently the manuals have both a single master images directory, and image directories local to each chapter. A single master images directory is difficult to maintain and inevitably becomes cluttered with obsolete images. Eventually the single master directories will be gone.
Use https://example.com in your examples where you want to include an URL.