We place a high importance on consistency and readability of documentation. After all, Django was created in a journalism environment! So we treat our documentation like we treat our code: we aim to improve it as often as possible.
Documentation changes generally come in two forms:
General improvements: typo corrections, error fixes and better explanations through clearer writing and more examples.
New features: documentation of features that have been added to the framework since the last release.
This section explains how writers can craft their documentation changes in the most useful and least error-prone ways.
Though Django’s documentation is intended to be read as HTML at
https://docs.djangoproject.com/, we edit it as a collection of text files for
maximum flexibility. These files live in the top-level docs/ directory of a
Django release.
If you’d like to start contributing to our docs, get the development version of Django from the source code repository (see Installing the development version). The development version has the latest-and-greatest documentation, just as it has latest-and-greatest code. We also backport documentation fixes and improvements, at the discretion of the committer, to the last release branch. That’s because it’s highly advantageous to have the docs for the last release be up-to-date and correct (see Differences between versions).
Django’s documentation uses the Sphinx documentation system, which in turn is based on docutils. The basic idea is that lightly-formatted plain-text documentation is transformed into HTML, PDF, and any other output format.
To build the documentation locally, install Sphinx:
$ pip install Sphinx
Then from the docs directory, build the HTML:
$ make html
To get started contributing, you’ll want to read the reStructuredText reference.
Your locally-built documentation will be themed differently than the documentation at docs.djangoproject.com. This is OK! If your changes look good on your local machine, they’ll look good on the website.
The documentation is organized into several categories:
Tutorials take the reader by the hand through a series of steps to create something.
The important thing in a tutorial is to help the reader achieve something useful, preferably as early as possible, in order to give them confidence.
Explain the nature of the problem we’re solving, so that the reader understands what we’re trying to achieve. Don’t feel that you need to begin with explanations of how things work - what matters is what the reader does, not what you explain. It can be helpful to refer back to what you’ve done and explain afterwards.
Topic guides aim to explain a concept or subject at a fairly high level.
Link to reference material rather than repeat it. Use examples and don’t be reluctant to explain things that seem very basic to you - it might be the explanation someone else needs.
Providing background context helps a newcomer connect the topic to things that they already know.
Reference guides contain technical reference for APIs. They describe the functioning of Django’s internal machinery and instruct in its use.
Keep reference material tightly focused on the subject. Assume that the reader already understands the basic concepts involved but needs to know or be reminded of how Django does it.
Reference guides aren’t the place for general explanation. If you find yourself explaining basic concepts, you may want to move that material to a topic guide.
How-to guides are recipes that take the reader through steps in key subjects.
What matters most in a how-to guide is what a user wants to achieve. A how-to should always be result-oriented rather than focused on internal details of how Django implements whatever is being discussed.
These guides are more advanced than tutorials and assume some knowledge about how Django works. Assume that the reader has followed the tutorials and don’t hesitate to refer the reader back to the appropriate tutorial rather than repeat the same material.
When using pronouns in reference to a hypothetical person, such as “a user with a session cookie”, gender neutral pronouns (they/their/them) should be used. Instead of:
he or she… use they.
him or her… use them.
his or her… use their.
his or hers… use theirs.
himself or herself… use themselves.
Try to avoid using words that minimize the difficulty involved in a task or operation, such as “easily”, “simply”, “just”, “merely”, “straightforward”, and so on. People’s experience may not match your expectations, and they may become frustrated when they do not find a step as “straightforward” or “simple” as it is implied to be.
Here are some style guidelines on commonly used terms throughout the documentation:
Django – when referring to the framework, capitalize Django. It is lowercase only in Python code and in the djangoproject.com logo.
email – no hyphen.
MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite
SQL – when referring to SQL, the expected pronunciation should be “Ess Queue Ell” and not “sequel”. Thus in a phrase like “Returns an SQL expression”, “SQL” should be preceded by “an” and not “a”.
Python – when referring to the language, capitalize Python.
realize, customize, initialize, etc. – use the American “ize” suffix, not “ise.”
subclass – it’s a single word without a hyphen, both as a verb (“subclass that model”) and as a noun (“create a subclass”).
Web, World Wide Web, the Web – note Web is always capitalized when referring to the World Wide Web.
website – use one word, without capitalization.
model – it’s not capitalized.
template – it’s not capitalized.
URLconf – use three capitalized letters, with no space before “conf.”
view – it’s not capitalized.
These guidelines regulate the format of our reST (reStructuredText) documentation:
In section titles, capitalize only initial words and proper nouns.
Wrap the documentation at 80 characters wide, unless a code example is significantly less readable when split over two lines, or for another good reason.
The main thing to keep in mind as you write and edit docs is that the more semantic markup you can add the better. So:
Add ``django.contrib.auth`` to your ``INSTALLED_APPS``...
Isn’t nearly as helpful as:
Add :mod:`django.contrib.auth` to your :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`...
This is because Sphinx will generate proper links for the latter, which greatly helps readers.
You can prefix the target with a ~ (that’s a tilde) to get just the
“last bit” of that path. So :mod:`~django.contrib.auth` will just
display a link with the title “auth”.
Use intersphinx to reference Python’s and Sphinx’
documentation.
Add .. code-block:: <lang> to literal blocks so that they get
highlighted. Prefer relying on automatic highlighting simply using ::
(two colons). This has the benefit that if the code contains some invalid
syntax, it won’t be highlighted. Adding .. code-block:: python, for
example, will force highlighting despite invalid syntax.
Use these heading styles:
===
One
===
Two
===
Three
-----
Four
~~~~
Five
^^^^
Use :rfc: to reference RFC and and try to link to the
relevant section if possible. For example, use :rfc:`2324#section-2.3.2`
or :rfc:`Custom link text <2324#section-2.3.2>`.
Besides Sphinx’s built-in markup, Django’s docs define some extra description units:
Settings:
.. setting:: INSTALLED_APPS
To link to a setting, use :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`.
Template tags:
.. templatetag:: regroup
To link, use :ttag:`regroup`.
Template filters:
.. templatefilter:: linebreaksbr
To link, use :tfilter:`linebreaksbr`.
Field lookups (i.e. Foo.objects.filter(bar__exact=whatever)):
.. fieldlookup:: exact
To link, use :lookup:`exact`.
django-admin commands:
.. django-admin:: migrate
To link, use :djadmin:`migrate`.
django-admin command-line options:
.. django-admin-option:: --traceback
To link, use :option:`command_name --traceback` (or omit command_name
for the options shared by all commands like --verbosity).
Links to Trac tickets (typically reserved for patch release notes):
:ticket:`12345`
Django’s documentation uses a custom console directive for documenting
command-line examples involving django-admin.py, manage.py, python,
etc.). In the HTML documentation, it renders a two-tab UI, with one tab showing
a Unix-style command prompt and a second tab showing a Windows prompt.
For example, you can replace this fragment:
use this command:
.. code-block:: console
$ python manage.py shell
with this one:
use this command:
.. console::
$ python manage.py shell
Notice two things:
You usually will replace occurrences of the .. code-block:: console
directive.
You don’t need to change the actual content of the code example. You still
write it assuming a Unix-y environment (i.e. a '$' prompt symbol,
'/' as filesystem path components separator, etc.)
The example above will render a code example block with two tabs. The first one will show:
$ python manage.py shell
(No changes from what .. code-block:: console would have rendered).
The second one will show:
...\> py manage.py shell
Our policy for new features is:
All documentation of new features should be written in a way that clearly designates the features are only available in the Django development version. Assume documentation readers are using the latest release, not the development version.
Our preferred way for marking new features is by prefacing the features’
documentation with: “.. versionadded:: X.Y”, followed by a mandatory
blank line and an optional description (indented).
General improvements, or other changes to the APIs that should be emphasized
should use the “.. versionchanged:: X.Y” directive (with the same format
as the versionadded mentioned above.
These versionadded and versionchanged blocks should be “self-contained.”
In other words, since we only keep these annotations around for two releases,
it’s nice to be able to remove the annotation and its contents without having
to reflow, reindent, or edit the surrounding text. For example, instead of
putting the entire description of a new or changed feature in a block, do
something like this:
.. class:: Author(first_name, last_name, middle_name=None)
A person who writes books.
``first_name`` is ...
...
``middle_name`` is ...
.. versionchanged:: A.B
The ``middle_name`` argument was added.
Put the changed annotation notes at the bottom of a section, not the top.
Also, avoid referring to a specific version of Django outside a
versionadded or versionchanged block. Even inside a block, it’s often
redundant to do so as these annotations render as “New in Django A.B:” and
“Changed in Django A.B”, respectively.
If a function, attribute, etc. is added, it’s also okay to use a
versionadded annotation like this:
.. attribute:: Author.middle_name
.. versionadded:: A.B
An author's middle name.
We can simply remove the .. versionadded:: A.B annotation without any
indentation changes when the time comes.
Optimize image compression where possible. For PNG files, use OptiPNG and
AdvanceCOMP’s advpng:
$ cd docs
$ optipng -o7 -zm1-9 -i0 -strip all `find . -type f -not -path "./_build/*" -name "*.png"`
$ advpng -z4 `find . -type f -not -path "./_build/*" -name "*.png"`
This is based on OptiPNG version 0.7.5. Older versions may complain about the
--strip all option being lossy.
For a quick example of how it all fits together, consider this hypothetical example:
First, the ref/settings.txt document could have an overall layout
like this:
========
Settings
========
...
.. _available-settings:
Available settings
==================
...
.. _deprecated-settings:
Deprecated settings
===================
...
Next, the topics/settings.txt document could contain something like
this:
You can access a :ref:`listing of all available settings
<available-settings>`. For a list of deprecated settings see
:ref:`deprecated-settings`.
You can find both in the :doc:`settings reference document
</ref/settings>`.
We use the Sphinx doc cross reference element when we want to
link to another document as a whole and the ref element when
we want to link to an arbitrary location in a document.
Next, notice how the settings are annotated:
.. setting:: ADMINS
ADMINS
======
Default: ``[]`` (Empty list)
A list of all the people who get code error notifications. When
``DEBUG=False`` and a view raises an exception, Django will email these people
with the full exception information. Each member of the list should be a tuple
of (Full name, email address). Example::
[('John', 'john@example.com'), ('Mary', 'mary@example.com')]
Note that Django will email *all* of these people whenever an error happens.
See :doc:`/howto/error-reporting` for more information.
This marks up the following header as the “canonical” target for the
setting ADMINS. This means any time I talk about ADMINS,
I can reference it using :setting:`ADMINS`.
That’s basically how everything fits together.
Before you commit your docs, it’s a good idea to run the spelling checker. You’ll need to install a couple packages first:
Then from the docs directory, run make spelling. Wrong words (if any)
along with the file and line number where they occur will be saved to
_build/spelling/output.txt.
If you encounter false-positives (error output that actually is correct), do one of the following:
Surround inline code or brand/technology names with grave accents (`).
Find synonyms that the spell checker recognizes.
If, and only if, you are sure the word you are using is correct - add it
to docs/spelling_wordlist (please keep the list in alphabetical order).
See Localizing the Django documentation if you’d like to help translate the documentation into another language.
django-admin man page¶Sphinx can generate a manual page for the
django-admin command. This is configured in
docs/conf.py. Unlike other documentation output, this man page should be
included in the Django repository and the releases as
docs/man/django-admin.1. There isn’t a need to update this file when
updating the documentation, as it’s updated once as part of the release process.
To generate an updated version of the man page, run make man in the
docs directory. The new man page will be written in
docs/_build/man/django-admin.1.
Dec 25, 2023