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Upgrade the documentation system

This page is dedicated to the description of the Google Summer of Code 2023 project idea of upgrading the documentation system of FreeCAD.

Obsolete: This page has been moved to https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/issues/8558

Outline

FreeCAD already possesses a vast documentation, written by its users and hosted on this very wiki. On each FreeCAD release, the contents of the wiki get packed into a offline documentation package which is bundled with FreeCAD. When using the \"what\'s this?\" feature, FreeCAD users can quickly get documentation about a specific tool

Additionally, this same documentation also has several translations, hosted on the same wiki and managed by a mediawiki plugin, and also counts on the source code structure and comments, automatically extracted by the doxygen tool, and hosted on https://www.freecadweb.org/api/

However there are several problems:

  • The bundled offline doc is often incomplete, due to the difficulty (and size) to pack it all
  • Over a year there are significant differences between the online and offline docs
  • Translations are not available offline
  • The doxygen-generated docs are in a bad state, hard to read and use and don\'t explain APIs clearly, and confuse C++ and python
  • The wiki is hard to port and back up
  • Add-ons documentation is not well integrated

Additionally, the mediawiki-based documentation is more and more problematic to maintain and back up, and we are looking at transitioning to a more easily portable and redundant system like git-based wikis.

This project proposes to remedy to the main problems by:

- allowing the user to switch between online and offline documentation, and choose between different available languages - extending and bettering the doxygen-generated documentation, with special care for the python API

  • proposing a better Doxygen structure for https://www.freecadweb.org/api/ possibly with interconnection with the wiki

- working on bettering the current wiki (formatting, linking between pages, navigation, etc) - reimplement the old workbench-defined documentation system, help porting the different addons - adapt the FreeCAD start page to it - adapt the FreeCAD help menu (integrate workbenches and addons help entries) - exploring the different possibilities of git-based documentation, analyzing specially their user-friendliness and ease of edition, and possibilities of maintaining large translations easily and automatically (for ex. connecting with translation platforms) and propose migration workflows

Details

  • Get familiar with FreeCAD and the contents of the wiki
  • Successfully compile FreeCAD (you\'ll be working in C++) and the Doxygen docs
  • Understand how Doxygen works and specifically how it treats C++ and Python differently
  • Work on the FreeCAD C++ source code (modify the whats\'this and documentation system, work on the Help menu)
  • Work on the in-source code documentation
  • Work on the wiki documentation
  • Explore and document available open-source documentation systems

Expected Outcome

  • A better documentation system inside FreeCAD
  • Documentation. Like all open-source projects, it is of uttermost importance to document a lot everything you do. This allows for other people to take on and extend your work more easily.
  • Proposals of migration to a better documentation system that would still keep FreeCAD users happy and eager to write and translate

Project Properties

Skills

  • Programming language: C++, but understanding some Python will be necessary
  • Readiness to work with documentation, reasonably good english writing skills

Difficulty

Medium

Project size

175h

Additional Information

  • Potential mentors: Yorik

⏵ documentation index > Upgrade the documentation system

This page is retrieved from https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-documentation/blob/main/wiki/Upgrade_the_documentation_system.md

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