zulip/docs
Tim Abbott ce91a43eee docs: Expand discussion of database schema migrations.
This covers the standard multi-step process for doing large
migrations, as well as other important properties to consider when
writing migrations.

Also documents the new Django 'atomic=False' option.

Fixes #1332.
2017-02-22 23:44:35 -08:00
..
_static docs: Add Git and GitHub Guide. 2016-10-17 16:18:16 -07:00
images docs: Rewrite user documentation styling guide. 2017-01-16 22:15:01 -08:00
.gitignore Initial sphinx setup from sphinx-quickstart 2015-08-18 17:31:32 -07:00
Makefile Initial sphinx setup from sphinx-quickstart 2015-08-18 17:31:32 -07:00
README.md Extract docs/user-docs.md from docs/README.md. 2017-01-16 21:58:25 -08:00
THIRDPARTY Revert "deps: Upgrade and move `jquery-mousewheel` from `static/third` to `npm`" 2017-01-26 13:42:00 -08:00
analytics.md developer docs: Add doc for analytics subsystem. 2017-02-22 22:12:40 -08:00
architecture-overview.md docs: Add a long document explaining the events system. 2017-02-10 01:17:15 -08:00
bots-guide.md docs: Update links to point to new chat-zulip-org.html. 2017-02-12 16:57:14 -08:00
brief-install-vagrant-dev.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
changelog.md Add release notes from Zulip Server 1.5.1. 2017-02-07 11:40:49 -08:00
chat-zulip-org.md docs: Copyedit docs/chat-zulip-org.html. 2017-02-18 15:03:57 -08:00
chinese.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
code-of-conduct.md docs: Add code of conduct. 2016-11-26 18:40:16 -08:00
code-reviewing.md docs: Add a resource to code review doc. 2017-02-14 11:32:01 +01:00
code-style.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
conf.py lint: Clean up E123 PEP-8 rule. 2017-01-23 21:34:26 -08:00
conversion.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
custom-apps.md docs: Fix broken URL. 2017-01-22 13:04:37 -08:00
dev-env-first-time-contributors.md docs: Rename #provision -> #provision help. 2017-02-12 17:08:22 -08:00
dev-overview.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
dev-remote.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
dev-setup-non-vagrant.md docs: Fix missing wget when downloading tsearch_extra. 2017-01-29 11:23:34 -08:00
directory-structure.md Update integration-guide according to integrations redesign. 2017-01-26 12:27:38 -08:00
emoji.md docs: Add initial documentation on the emoji system. 2017-01-29 12:15:29 -08:00
events-system.md Extract zerver/lib/events.py from actions.py with event registration. 2017-02-10 16:50:43 -08:00
front-end-build-process.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
full-text-search.md docs: Fix markup issue in pgroonga docs. 2017-02-08 10:17:23 -08:00
german.md docs: Fix link to formal/information in German guide. 2017-02-12 16:46:53 -08:00
git-guide.md docs: Expand explanation for why we use rebase workflow. 2017-01-22 15:42:27 -08:00
html_css.md Extract media queries to media.css. 2016-08-05 10:32:55 -07:00
html_unescape.py Change shebangs from python2.7 to python. 2016-05-29 05:03:08 -07:00
index.rst developer docs: Add doc for analytics subsystem. 2017-02-22 22:12:40 -08:00
install-docker-dev.md docs: Simplify hierarchy of dev setup docs. 2016-11-29 14:13:09 -08:00
install-generic-unix-dev.md docs: Simplify hierarchy of dev setup docs. 2016-11-29 14:13:09 -08:00
install-ubuntu-without-vagrant-dev.md docs: Simplify hierarchy of dev setup docs. 2016-11-29 14:13:09 -08:00
integration-guide.md docs: Clarify that non-webhook integrations need documentation too. 2017-02-07 18:24:35 -08:00
life-of-a-request.md docs: Add a long document explaining the events system. 2017-02-10 01:17:15 -08:00
linters.md Note in linters doc that untracked files aren't linted. 2017-01-25 05:54:46 -08:00
logging.md Improve first-time contributor docs. 2016-05-31 07:47:45 -07:00
manual-testing.md docs: Replace "search help" with "search operators". 2017-02-02 12:25:58 -08:00
markdown.md docs: tweak markdown manual testing docs a bit. 2017-02-16 16:24:12 -08:00
migration-renumbering.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
mypy.md mypy: Update docs to recommend typing.Text instead of six.text_type. 2016-12-26 16:11:37 -08:00
new-feature-tutorial.md docs: Fix typo in new-feature-tutorial.md. 2017-02-22 00:37:59 -08:00
pointer.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
polish.md docs: Wrap long lines in translation guides. 2017-01-05 14:08:42 -08:00
prod-authentication-methods.md docs: Fix style in authentication methods doc. 2016-10-22 20:14:56 -07:00
prod-customize.md docs: Update customization docs slightly for Zulip 1.5. 2017-02-03 12:57:50 -08:00
prod-email.md docs: Update email configuration documentation. 2017-02-22 22:26:43 -08:00
prod-install.md docs: Update email configuration documentation. 2017-02-22 22:26:43 -08:00
prod-maintain-secure-upgrade.md Replace references to zulip.com/dist with zulip.org/dist. 2017-01-28 17:56:25 -08:00
prod-postgres.md lint: Check for long lines in all markdown files in general. 2017-01-05 15:06:34 -08:00
prod-requirements.md docs: Update email configuration documentation. 2017-02-22 22:26:43 -08:00
prod-troubleshooting.md docs: Rename status/debug page to troubleshooting. 2016-08-25 09:37:33 -07:00
queuing.md queues: Add new system for managing rabbitmq per-queue work. 2017-02-19 16:18:37 -08:00
reading-list.md docs: Add book about OSS prod to the reading list. 2017-01-30 11:32:23 -08:00
readme-symlink.md Rearrange docs table of contents for coherence. 2016-05-31 09:07:09 -07:00
realms.md Fix grammatical and spelling errors in Zulip/docs. 2017-01-16 20:16:12 -08:00
release-checklist.md docs: Update release checklist to mention GitHub. 2017-02-01 09:48:00 -08:00
requirements.readthedocs.txt Move doc building dependencies to requirements/docs.txt. 2016-06-20 16:05:42 -07:00
roadmap.md roadmap: Mark a bunch of projects as completed. 2017-02-07 10:12:01 -08:00
russian.md docs: Wrap long lines in Russian style guide. 2017-01-05 14:31:34 -08:00
schema-migrations.md docs: Expand discussion of database schema migrations. 2017-02-22 23:44:35 -08:00
security-model.md auth: Improve configuration/documentation for password strength. 2017-01-17 20:52:52 -08:00
settings.md docs: Fix typo in spelling of generate_secrets. 2016-10-05 17:47:14 -07:00
spanish.md docs: Improve Spanish style guide. 2017-01-28 19:08:14 -08:00
ssl-certificates.md docs: Move SSL docs to a dedicated page. 2016-08-25 09:37:33 -07:00
testing-with-casper.md docs: Update the casper docs based on recent debugging. 2017-02-09 23:35:11 -08:00
testing-with-django.md test-backend: Add 100% test coverage assertions. 2017-02-18 16:34:40 -08:00
testing-with-node.md deps: Upgrade and move `underscore.js` from `static/third` to `npm` 2017-01-19 17:07:45 -08:00
testing.md docs: Change dev -> development everywhere. 2016-11-29 14:23:54 -08:00
translating.md docs: Update links to point to new chat-zulip-org.html. 2017-02-12 16:57:14 -08:00
user-docs.md docs: Document *Administrator only feature* macro in user documentation styling guide. 2017-01-17 14:45:15 -08:00
users.md Add draft document for user populations. 2016-11-08 15:28:04 -08:00
using-dev-environment.md Remove some some duplicate words in copy. 2017-01-23 23:15:04 -08:00
version-control.md docs: Clarify commit message portion of version control docs. 2016-10-05 19:28:21 -07:00
webhook-walkthrough.md Fix typo in webhook "Create documentation" section. 2017-02-19 10:02:33 -08:00
writing-views.md lint: Check for long lines in all markdown files in general. 2017-01-05 15:06:34 -08:00

README.md

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.

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

To learn more about Zulip's general user documentation, visit our guide on writing user documentation here.