zulip/docs

Documentation

Zulip has three major documentation systems:

• Developer and sysadmin documentation: Documentation for people actually interacting with the Zulip codebase (either by developing it or installing it), and written in Markdown.

• Core website documentation: Complete webpages for complex topics, written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS (using the Django templating system). These roughly correspond to the documentation someone might look at when deciding whether to use Zulip. We don't expect to ever have more than about 10 pages written using this system.

• General user documentation: Our scalable system for documenting Zulip's huge collection of specific features without a lot of overhead or duplicated code/syntax, written in Markdown. We expect to eventually have around 100 pages written using this system. The target audience for this system is individual Zulip users.

These three systems are documented in detail below.

Developer and sysadmin documentation

What you are reading right now is part of the collection of documentation targeted at developers and people running their own Zulip servers. These docs are written in Commonmark Markdown with a small bit of rST. We've chosen Markdown because it is easy to write. The source for Zulip's developer documentation is at docs/ in the Zulip git repository, and they are served in production at zulip.readthedocs.io.

If you want to build the developer documentation locally (e.g. to test your changes), the dependencies are automatically installed as part of Zulip development environment provisioning, and you can build the documentation using:

cd docs/
make html

and then opening file:///path/to/zulip/docs/_build/html/index.html in your browser (you can also use e.g. firefox docs/_build/html/index.html from the root of your Zulip checkout).

If you are adding a new page to the table of contents, you will want to modify docs/index.rst and run make clean before make html, so that other docs besides your new one also get the new entry in the table of contents.

You can also usually test your changes by pushing a branch to GitHub and looking at the content on the GitHub web UI, since GitHub renders Markdown, though that won't be as faithful as the make html approach.

When editing dependencies for the Zulip documentation, you should edit requirements/docs.txt (which is used by ReadTheDocs to build the Zulip developer documentation, without installing all of Zulip's dependencies).

Core website documentation

Zulip has around 10 HTML documentation pages under templates/zerver for specific major topics, like the features list, client apps, integrations, hotkeys, API bindings, etc. These documents often have somewhat complex HTML and JavaScript, without a great deal of common pattern between them other than inheriting from the portico.html template. We generally avoid adding new pages to this collection unless there's a good reason, but we don't intend to migrate them, either, since this system gives us the flexibility to express these important elements of the product clearly.

General user documentation

Our goal is for Zulip to have complete, high-quality user-facing documentation about how to use every feature and how to do common tasks (like setting up a new Zulip organization well). This system is designed to make writing and maintaining such documentation highly efficient.

The user documentation is available under /help/ on any Zulip server; (e.g. https://chat.zulip.org/help/ or http://localhost:9991/help/ in the Zulip development environment). The user documentation is not hosted on ReadTheDocs, since Zulip supports running a server completely disconnected from the Internet, and we'd like the documentation to be available in that environment.

The source for this user documentation is the Markdown files under templates/zerver/help/ in the main Zulip server repository. The file foo.md is automatically rendered by the render_markdown_path function in zerver/templatetags/app_filters.py when the user accesses a URL of the form /help/foo; with special cases for /help/ going to index.md and /help/unknown_article going to missing.md (with a 404 response). Images are usually linked from static/images/help/.

This means that you can contribute to the Zulip user documentation by just adding to or editing the collection of markdown files under templates/zerver/help. If you have the Zulip development environment setup, you simply need to reload your browser on http://localhost:9991/help/foo to see the latest version of foo.md rendered.

Since raw HTML is supported in Markdown, you can include arbitrary HTML in your documentation in order to do fancy things like highlighting an important aspect of your code. We'll likely add a library of common components over time, which will be documented below.

Supported features

• All the usual features of Markdown with raw HTML enabled so you can do custom things with HTML/CSS as needed. The goal is to make reusable markdown syntax for things we need often, though.
• Code blocks with syntax highlighting, similar to Zulip's own markdown.
• Anchor tags for linking to headers in other documents.
• You can create special highlight warning blocks using e.g.:

!!! warn "title of warning"
    Body of warning

to create a special warning block with title "title of warning" to highlight something important. The whitespace is important. Often, we just use "" as the title. !!! tip "title" is useful for less scary tips. See the python-markdown docs on this extension for details on how this extension works; essentially the value warn or tip is an extra CSS class added to the admonition.

Macros

Macros are elements in the format of {!macro.md!} that insert common phrases and steps at the location of the macros.

Administration {!admin.md!} macro

• About: Links to the Edit Administrator Settings documentation. Usually preceded by the Go to the macro and a link to a particular section on the Administration page.

• Contents:

  tab of the [Administration](/help/edit-administrator-settings) page.
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!go-to-the.md!} [Organization Settings](/#administration/organization-settings)
  {!admin.md!}
  

  1. Go to the [OrganizationSettings](/#administration/organization-settings) tab of the
  [Administration](/help/edit-administrator-settings) page.
  

All streams {!all-sreams.md!} macro

• About: Explains how to view all streams in the organization on the Subscriptions page. Usually formatted as a tip and preceded by the Subscriptions macro and the Filter streams macro.

• Contents:

      If you wish to see streams that you aren't subscribed to, click on the
          **All streams** tab; the tab will turn gray upon doing so.
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!subscriptions.md!}
  {!filter-streams.md!}
      !!! tip ""
      {!all-streams.md!}
  

  1. [Find the relevant stream](/help/browse-and-join-streams#browse-streams) on the
  [Subscriptions](/#subscriptions) page. You can search for specific streams by entering the
  name of the stream in the **Filter streams** input.
      !!! tip ""
          If you wish to see streams that you aren't subscribed to, click on the
          **All streams** tab; the tab will turn gray upon doing so.
  

Down chevron {!down-chevron.md!} macro

• About: Instructs readers to click on the down chevron () icon to reveal an actions dropdown; usually preceded by an command, such as the Message actions macro.

• Contents:

  down chevron (<i class="icon-vector-chevron-down"></i>) icon to reveal an actions dropdown.
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!message-actions.md!}
  {!down-chevron.md!}
  

  1. Hover over a message to replace the message's timestamp with its message
  actions, represented by three icons. From the icons that appear, select the
  down chevron (<i class="icon-vector-chevron-down"></i>) icon to reveal an actions dropdown.
  

Go to the {!go-to-the.md} macro

• About: Usually precedes the Settings macro or the Administration macro. Transforms following content into a step.

• Contents:

  1. Go to the
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!go-to-the.md!} [Notifications](/#settings/notifications)
  {!settings.md!}
  

  1. Go to the [Notifications](/#settings/notifications) tab on the
  [Settings](/help/edit-settings) page.
  

Filter streams {!filter-streams.md!} macro

• About: Explains how to search for specific streams in the Subscriptions page using the Filter streams input. Usually preceded by the Subscriptions macro.

• Contents:

  You can search for specific streams by entering the name of the stream in
  the **Filter streams** input.
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!subscriptions.md!}
  {!filter-streams.md!}
  

  1. [Find the relevant stream](/help/browse-and-join-streams#browse-streams) on the
  [Subscriptions](/#subscriptions) page. You can search for specific streams by entering the
  name of the stream in the **Filter streams** input.
  

Follow steps {!follow-steps.md!} macro

• About: Prepends phrases with instructions to follow the following steps.

• Contents:

  Follow the following steps to
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!follow-steps.md!}  change your mobile notification settings.
  

  Follow the following steps to change your mobile notification settings.
  

Message actions {!message-actions.md!} macro

• About: Explains how to view the actions of message. Usually followed by an instruction to click a specific icon, such as the Down chevron macro.

• Contents:

  1. Hover over a message to replace the message's timestamp with its message
  actions, represented by three icons. From the icons that appear, select the
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!message-actions.md!}
  {!down-chevron.md!}
  

  1. Hover over a message to replace the message's timestamp with its message
  actions, represented by three icons. From the icons that appear, select the
  down chevron (<i class="icon-vector-chevron-down"></i>) icon to reveal an actions dropdown.
  

Settings {!settings.md!} macro

• About: Links to the Edit Settings documentation. Usually preceded by the Go to the macro and a link to a particular section on the Settings page.

• Contents:

  tab on the [Settings](/help/edit-settings) page.
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!go-to-the.md!} [Notifications](/#settings/notifications)
  {!settings.md!}
  

  1. Go to the [Notifications](/#settings/notifications) tab on the
  [Settings](/help/edit-settings) page.
  

Stream actions {!stream-actions.md!} macro

• About: Explains how to view the actions of stream. Usually followed by the an instruction and the Down chevron macro.

• Contents:

  1. On the left sidebar in the **Streams** section, hover over a stream to reveal
  a down chevron (<i class="icon-vector-chevron-down"></i>) icon to the right of
  the stream name.
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!stream-actions.md!}
  
  1. Click on the {!down-chevron.md!}
  

  1. On the left sidebar in the **Streams** section, hover over a stream to reveal
  a down chevron (<i class="icon-vector-chevron-down"></i>) icon to the right of
  the stream name.
  
  2. Click on the down chevron (<i class="icon-vector-chevron-down"></i>)
  icon to reveal an actions dropdown.
  

Stream settings {!stream-settings.md!} macro

• About: Notifies readers about the changes in the Subscriptions page when a stream is selected; usually followed by an instruction.

• Contents:

  the right side of the [Subscriptions](/#subscriptions) page, labeled
  **Stream settings**, will now display the selected stream's settings.
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  1. Click on the stream you want to edit; {!stream-settings.md!}
  

  1. Click on the stream you want to edit; the right side of the
  [Subscriptions](/#subscriptions) page, labeled **Stream settings**, will
  now display the selected stream's settings.
  

Stream settings scroll {!stream-settings.md!} macro

• About: Instructs readers to scroll down to a particular section on the Subscriptions page after making sure their cursors are hovering above the Streams Settings section.

• Contents:

  1. After making sure that your cursor is hovering over the **Streams Settings**
  section, scroll down to the
  

• Example usage and rendering:

  {!stream-settings-scroll.md!} **Stream membership** section. This section
  shows the usernames and emails of all users that are currently subscribed to the
  selected stream.
  

  1. After making sure that your cursor is hovering over the **Streams Settings**
  section, scroll down to the **Stream membership** section. This section
  shows the usernames and emails of all users that are currently subscribed to the
  selected stream.
  

Subscriptions {!subscriptions.md!} macro

• About: Used in documentation that direct users to the Subscriptions page. Often followed by the Filter streams macro.

• Contents:

  1. [Find the relevant stream](/help/browse-and-join-streams#browse-streams) on
  the [Subscriptions](/#subscriptions) page.
  

• Standard usage and rendering:

  {!subscriptions.md!}
  {!filter-streams.md!}
  

  1. [Find the relevant stream](/help/browse-and-join-streams#browse-streams) on the
  [Subscriptions](/#subscriptions) page. You can search for specific streams by entering the
  name of the stream in the **Filter streams** input.
  

Style guide

• Names of buttons, fields, etc. should be bolded (e.g. Settings page, Change password button, Email field). No quotation marks should be used.

• All multi-step instructions should be formatted as a series of numbered steps. E.g.:

  1. Do something
  2. Do the next thing.
  

  Keep the steps simple — "do X, then Y, then Z" is three steps, not one.

• Images and additional notes or instructions are kept within a single step by indenting them.

• Keep in mind that the UI may change — don't describe it in more detail than is needed.

  • Never refer specifically to button colors.

• All icons should be referenced by their names and their FontAwesome (version 3.0.2) text icons within parentheses.

  • cog () icon — cog (<i class="icon-vector-cog"></i>) icon
  • down chevron () icon — down chevron (<i class="icon-vector-chevron-down"></i>) icon
  • eye () icon — eye (<i class="icon-vector-eye-open"></i>) icon
  • file () icon — file (<i class="icon-vector-file-text-alt"></i>) icon
  • filled star () icon — filled star (<i class="icon-vector-star"></i>) icon
  • formatting () icon — formatting (<i class="icon-vector-font"></i>) icon
  • menu () icon — menu (<i class="icon-vector-reorder"></i>) icon
  • overflow ( ) icon — overflow ( <i class="icon-vector-ellipsis-verical"></i> ) icon
  • paperclip () icon — paperclip (<i class="icon-vector-paperclip"></i>) icon
  • pencil () icon — pencil (<i class="icon-vector-pencil"></i>) icon
  • pencil and paper () icon — pencil and paper (<i class="icon-vector-edit"></i>) icon
  • plus () icon — plus (<i class="icon-vector-plus"></i>) icon
  • smiley face () icon — smiley face (<i class="icon-vector-smile"></i>) icon
  • star () icon — star (<i class="icon-vector-star-empty"></i>) icon
  • trash () icon — trash (<i class="icon-vector-trash"></i>) icon
  • x () icon — x (<i class="icon-vector-remove"></i>) icon

• Guidelines for tips and warnings:

  • A tip is any suggestion for the user that is not part of the main set of instructions. E.g. it may address a common problem users may encounter while following the instructions, or point to an option for power users.
  • A warning is a note on what happens when there is some kind of problem. Tips are more common than warnings.
  • All tips/warnings should appear inside tip/warning blocks. They should not be included as part of the numbered instructions or displayed in plain paragraphs.
  • There should be only one tip/warning inside each block. It is perfectly fine to use multiple consecutive tip boxes.
  • Generally, no title for the tip/warning block is needed.
  • Example tip from the sign-in doc page:

    !!! tip ""
        If you've forgotten your password, see the
        [Change your password](/help/change-your-password) page for
        instructions on how to reset it.
    

  • Other examples of tips:
    • Your topic name can be no longer than 52 characters.
    • If you are unsure of the code for any particular emoji visit Emoji Cheat Sheet for a complete list.
  • Example warning:

    !!! warn ""
        If you attempt to input a nonexistent stream name, an error
        message will appear.
    

• Screenshot guidelines:

  • Only include a screenshot if it will help guide the user. E.g. include a screenshot if the user needs to find a button in the corner. Don't include a screenshot if the element the user needs to interact with is the only thing on the page. Using too many screenshots creates problems:

    • Maintenance: The screen shot has to be updated every time the UI is changed.
    • It makes the instructions look longer and therefore more complicated.

  • Never include the whole Zulip window in a screenshot. Focus on the relevant part of the app.

  • The screenshot should always come after the text that describes it, never before. E.g.:

    1. Click the Sign in with Google button located under the Login button and Forgot your password? link.