The Carpentries Handbook (BETA)

This is an early prototype of what The Carpentries Handbook might look like. Everything is a work in progress and does not currently contain any actual Carpentries documentation. The site can be previewed at this Netlify link.

Site Organization

This handbook has three main sections:

• Handbooks. This contains handbooks for each community role (Community Session Host, Instructor, etc.). Each community role has the same following sections, to ensure users have a consisent experience as they explore each role.
  • Roles and Responsibilities
  • Onboarding
  • Offboarding
  • Communication and Collaboration Spaces
  • Step by step guides
  • Resources
  • FAQ
• Resources. This is a listing of general resources available to The Carpentries community (Style guide, Communication resources, etc.).
• Policies. This is a listing of all Carpentries policies (Code of Conduct, Privacy, etc.)

File structure

• /build/ Used to build local website. In .gitignore so this will not show up in the repo. Do not edit these files.
• /source/ Contains all the files needed to build the site. Includes:
  • css files and page templates that override styles and templates in the theme
  • folders with rst files with content for each page. This includes one folder for each area of work, plus a folder called pages for general pages such as the style guide, glossary, and other landing pages.
  • /_includes/ - text blocks and other content to be included in other pages
  • /_templates/ - templates for specialized content such as the table of contents in the sidebar
  • /_static/ - contains custom css styles
  • conf.py - site settings
  • index.rst - sets structure for home page
• .gitignore Standard gitignore file
• Makefile - includes custom Make commands and inherits general Sphinx Make commands.

Editing content

Content is organized in the source directory. Edits to content should be made to these files. Do not edit files in the build folder.

Editing styles

Most styling comes from the pydata_sphinx_theme template. Custom styles are implemented in /source/_static/css. This includes the font files for the Mulish Google font and a custom css file.

Editing templates and layouts

Most templates and layouts come from the pydata_sphinx_theme template. Custom page templates are implemented in /source/_templates/. For example, the standard theme includes Python functions to build templates for the table of contents in the sidebar and top navigation bar. Instead, we use custom and hard coded templates. These are then called in html_theme_options in conf.py.

Building the handbook

The handbook is built using Sphinx and the pydata_sphinx_theme.

• make clean Removes all files in the build directory
• make html Builds the site and publishes html content to the build directory

Changes to conf.py

After setting the theme, the additional following changes were needed to conf.py. Note this list does not include changes that only reflect The Carpentries identity (setting the name, social media handles, etc.). The list includes changes that affect the site functionality.

• To make the template render markdown files properly, add .md to the source_suffix list and add myst_parser to the extensions list
• To use a custon style sheet, set html_static_path = ['_static'] and html_css_files = ['css/custom.css']
• Add GitHub identifies to html_context. This is supposed to enable the "Edit on GitHub" button, but does not work.
• Add navbar and sidebar settings to html_context
• To use headers as anchor links, add myst_heading_anchors = 6
• To suppress warnings about duplicate headers across documents, add suppress_warnings = ['autosectionlabel.*']

Previews on Netlify

This site is set up to preview all pull requests via Netlify. Note Netlify login is required to setup and manage Netlify. All PRs will offer a public Netlify preview link.

Useful links

• Pydata Sphinx Theme
• General Sphinx Documentation