How to Update the MHKiT Documentation Website
The MHKiT documentation is developed as restructured text files that are compiled by Sphinx into html files and then uploaded to the MHKiT Documentation Repository. Using Sphinx, GitHub renders the documentation on the MHKiT Documentation Repository as the MHKiT Documentation Website. This guide will help the user to download the documentation, modify the documentation, build the documentation locally, and push changes back up to the repository.
To update the MHKiT documentation you will need Python 3.6+, Git, Sphinx, and a GitHub account. This documentation assumes the user has a working version of Python installed (We recommend Anaconda Python, during installation check the add Python to Path) and a GitHub account but will cover the needed Python Sphinx package installation.
- To update the documentation a user will need to "fork" this repository. This simply means that you are creating your own copy of this repository that you can edit.
- Once forked you can "clone" (this will download your fork to your machine) the repository to your local machine using the command line.
- Using the command line navigate to the file system location you would like to keep the documentation repository clone the documentation. Replacing the username and repository name to the correct values for you. This link can be automatically generated on your fork by copying the link visible after clicking clone on your repository page. The repository name will be assumed to be MHKiT in the remaining commands.
git clone https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORYNAME.git
- Once cloned use the command line to change directories into the folder created by the clone to update the MHKiT-Python and MHKiT-MATLAB [submodules].
cd MHKiT
git submodule init
git submodule update --remote
The MHKiT-Python
and MHKiT-MATLAB
folders should now contain source code.
- Create and activate the conda environment:
conda env create -f environment.yml
conda activate mhkit-docs
If you prefer to install packages manually:
- Install the local MHKiT-Python submodule:
pip uninstall mhkit # Remove any existing MHKiT installation
cd MHKiT-Python
pip install -e . # Install the submodule in editable mode
NOTE: After building the documentation, remember to reinstall your preferred MHKiT-Python distribution:
- From PyPI:
pip install mhkit
- From your fork:
pip install -e /path/to/your/fork/of/MHKiT-Python
- Install Sphinx and dependencies:
pip install -U Sphinx==8.1.3
pip install -U sphinxcontrib-bibtex==2.6.3 sphinxcontrib-matlabdomain==0.22.1 sphinx-rtd-theme==3.0.2 nbsphinx==0.9.5 sphinxcontrib-googleanalytics==0.4 ipython
conda install pandoc
You are now ready to begin modifying and building the MHKiT documentation.
- The restructured text files used to build the documentation are located in the
/MHKiT/docs/source
directory (Check the Sphinx Website for information about the folder structure). - Before modifying the documentation we recommend creating a feature branch and not modifying your fork's main branch. A feature branch can be created using the commands
git branch featureBranchName
git checkout featureBranchName
- Now you can use a text editor to modify any restructured text file (files with
.rst
extension, e.g.index.rst
). - Once you are done editing, move to Step 4
Step 4. Build the MHKiT Documentation
- To locally build the documentation use the command line to move into the
/MHKiT/docs
folder thenmake html
cd docs
make clean
make html
Using your machine's file explorer navigate to MHKiT/docs and use an Internet browser (i.e. Chrome, Safari, Edge, etc. ) to open index.html
to view modifications to the documentation source made above.
Step 5. Update to the MHKiT Documentation
-
Once changes have been made the user can push the changes back up to their fork
git status
- The status will return a list of files that have been modified. If you want to commit all of the changed files you can use
git add --all
otherwise usegit add fileName
wherefileName
is either the file or a list of space-separated files the user wishes to add. - Commit the changes with a message documenting what has been changed
git commit -m 'A descriptive message here describing why or what was changed in the documentation'
- Finally, push the changes to your fork's (
yourFork
) feature branch (featureBranchName
).
git push -u yourFork featureBranchName
- If you did not create a feature branch simply type
git push
- The status will return a list of files that have been modified. If you want to commit all of the changed files you can use
- Submit a pull request to merge the revisions on your fork with main, https://github.com/MHKiT-Software/MHKiT/pulls
- Run spell check (not built into most text editors)
- Update the MHKiT-Python and MHKiT-MATLAB submodules
git submodule init
git submodule update --remote
, refer to https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Submodules for more information - When compiling the website,
make clean
and thenmake html
*.m
or*.py
syntax to refer to file extension- use
insert code
to reference code - use API documentation from source code
- Title
####
with overline - Heading 1
======
- Heading 2
------
- Heading 3
^^^^^^
- Heading 4
""""""
- Heading 5
++++++
- Made sure header underline is for full length of header text
- Use this style guide: https://documentation-style-guide-sphinx.readthedocs.io/en/latest/style-guide.html
- DataFrame (not dataframe)
- MATLAB (not Matlab)
- Python (not python)
- pandas (not Pandas)
- MHKiT (not mhkit)
- open-source (not open source)
- time-series (not timeseries or time series)
- time-domain (not time domain)
- frequency-domain (not frequency domain)
- MHKiT-Python (or link to MHKiT-Python when referring to the repo)
- MHKiT-MATLAB (MHKiT-MATLAB when referring to the repo)
- MHKiT (Marine and Hydrokinetic Toolkit)
All modules in MHKiT should be briefly described in the "Module Overview" Section. Below is a template that can be used for a new MHKiT module (fix title characters when adding a section):
NAME Module
====================
Brief description of what the module dose.
API Documentation
--------------------
Python NAME API Documentation <mhkit-python/api.NAME.html>
_MATLAB NAME API Documentation <mhkit-matlab/api.NAME.html>
_
Examples
--------------
- Bulleted list of linked examples
- pertaining to this module.
- Tag modules in docs/source/examples.rst as appropriate.
Submodules
--------------
The NAME module contains the following submodules:
SUBMODULE_NAME
: one sentence description of the submodule. Calculations are based onIEC TS XXXXX-XXX:20XX EDX <LINK>
SUBMODULE_NAME
: etc...
IEC/TS XXXXX-XXX
---------------------------
Recommends proper use of the module per relevant IEC standards.
The documentation is automatically built and deployed using GitHub Actions when changes are pushed to the main branch. You can view the latest documentation at https://MHKiT-Software.github.io/MHKiT/.