How to use Sphinx Documentation#

The method below allows you to write and preview the doc easily thanks to VSCode and the Dev Container technology.

Important

We do not provide support for other installation methods. A requirements.txt file is available at the root of the documentation one can consult the content of the .devcontainer folder to install the required programs and tools to build the documentation on its own.

Requirements#

Quick start#

Clone the repository and open the folder in VSCode.

git clone https://gitlab.hevs.ch/SPL/spl-docs.git
cd spl-docs
code .

The .devcontainer folder within the root of the documentation will be detected by VSCode and this latter will ask you to open the folder in a container. Confirm the action. If the dialog doesn’t show up, open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or F1) and search for Dev Containers: Open Folder in Container....

Once the container is built, you are ready to read and write some doc. A live preview is available at http://localhost:1950. This live preview update whenever a change in the source folder is detected.

Install new package#

If you write a documentation and find an useful extension or package to be added, use the standard pip install command. Note that this will install the package only on your local devcontainer. As long as you don’t rebuild the container, you don’t have to reinstall the package again. To make the installation of the package permanent, don’t forget to add this latter in the requirements.txt file.

Available commands#

This documentation comes with a justfile (Makefile replacement). Use just -l to see the availabe recipes:

$ just -l

Available recipes:
  clean      # Delete build folder(s)
  html       # Build HTML static site
  livehtml   # Build and serve static HTML pages
  publichtml # Build and copy HTML in public folder (gitlab deployment)

Commit your changes#

Before performing a commit the following steps are required:

Verify the build of the documentation locally:
```
just clean && just html
```
Solve important build Warnings and Errors (if any) in the output.
Commit and push your changes

Continuous Integration(CI)#

The .gitlab-ci.yml will run on each master commit and create a public/ folder which will be used by gitlab pages and displayed as static html pages.

Sphinx Installation How to