note.txt

{% include note.html content="If you're cloning this theme, you're probably writing documentation of some kind. I have a blog on technical writing here called <a alt='technical writing blog' href='http://idratherbewriting.com'>I'd Rather Be Writing</a>. If you'd like to stay updated with the latest trends, best practices, and other methods for writing documentation, consider <a href='https://tinyletter.com/tomjoht'>subscribing</a>. I also have a site on <a href='http://idratherbewriting.com/learnapidoc'>writing API documentation</a>." %}

## Build the Theme

Follow these instructions to build the theme.

### 1. Download the theme

First, download or clone the theme from the [Github repo](https://github.com/tomjoht/documentation-theme-jekyll). Most likely you won't be pulling in updates once you start customizing the theme, so downloading the theme (instead of cloning it) probably makes the most sense. In Github, click the **Clone or download** button, and then click **Download ZIP**.

### 2. Install Jekyll

If you've never installed or run a Jekyll site locally on your computer, follow these instructions to install Jekyll:

* [Install Jekyll on Mac][mydoc_install_jekyll_on_mac]
* [Install Jekyll on Windows][mydoc_install_jekyll_on_windows]

### 3. Install Bundler

In case you haven't installed Bundler, install it:

```
gem install bundler
```

You'll want [Bundler](http://bundler.io/) to make sure all the Ruby gems needed work well with your project. Bundler sorts out dependencies and installs missing gems or matches up gems with the right versions based on gem dependencies.

### 4. Option 1: Build the Theme (*without* the github-pages gem) {#option1}

Use this option if you're not planning to publish your Jekyll site using [Github Pages](https://pages.github.com/).

Bundler's Gemfile specifies how project dependencies are managed. Although this project includes a Gemfile, this theme doesn't have any dependencies beyond core Jekyll. The Gemfile is used to list gems needed for publishing on Github Pages. **If you're not planning to have Github Pages build your Jekyll project, delete these two files from the theme's root directory:**

* Gemfile
* Gemfile.lock

If you've never run Jekyll on your computer (you can check with `jekyll --version`), you may need to install the jekyll gem:

```
gem install jekyll
```

Now run jekyll serve (first change directories (`cd`) to where you downloaded the project):

```
jekyll serve
```

### 4. Option 2: Build the Theme (*with* the github-pages gem) {#option2}

If you *are* in fact publishing on Github Pages, leave the Gemfile and Gemfile.lock files in the theme.The Gemfile tells Jekyll to use the github-pages gem. **However, note that you cannot use the normal `jekyll serve` command with this gem due to dependency conflicts between the latest version of Jekyll and Github Pages** (which are noted [briefly here](https://help.github.com/articles/setting-up-your-github-pages-site-locally-with-jekyll/)).

You need Bundler to resolve these dependency conflicts. Use Bundler to install all the needed Ruby gems:

```
bundle update
```

Then *always* use this command to build Jekyll:

```
bundle exec jekyll serve
```

If you want to shorten this long command, you can put this code in a file such as jekyll.sh (on a Mac) and then simply type `. jekyll.sh` to build Jekyll.

## Running the site in Docker

You can also use Docker to directly build and run the site on your local machine. Just clone the repo and run the following from your working dir:
```
docker-compose build --no-cache && docker-compose up
```
The site should now be running at [http://localhost:4000/](http://localhost:4000/).

This is perhaps the easiest way to see how your site would actually look.

## Configure the sidebar

There are several products in this theme. Each product uses a different sidebar. This is the essence of what makes this theme unique -- different sidebars for different product documentation. The idea is that when users are reading documentation for a specific product, the sidebar navigation should be specific to that product. (You can read more of my thoughts on why multiple sidebars are important in this [blog post](http://idratherbewriting.com/2016/03/23/release-of-documentation-theme-for-jekyll-50/).)

The top navigation usually remains the same, because it allows users to navigate across products. But the sidebar navigation adapts to the product.

In each page's frontmatter, you must specify the sidebar you want that page to use. Here's an example of the page frontmatter showing the sidebar property:

<pre>
---
title: Alerts
tags: [formatting]
keywords: notes, tips, cautions, warnings, admonitions
last_updated: July 3, 2016
summary: "You can insert notes, tips, warnings, and important alerts in your content. These notes are stored as shortcodes made available through the linksrefs.hmtl include."
<span class="red">sidebar: mydoc_sidebar</span>
permalink: mydoc_alerts
---
</pre>

The `sidebar: mydoc_sidebar` refers to the \_data/sidebars/mydoc_sidebar.yml file.

Note that your sidebar can only have 2 levels (expand the **Tag archives** option to see an example of the second level). Given that each product has its own sidebar, this depth should be sufficient (it's really like 3 levels). Deeper nesting goes against usability recommendations.

You can optionally turn off the sidebar on any page (e.g. landing pages). To turn off the sidebar for a page, you should set the page frontmatter tag as `hide_sidebar: true`.

If you don't declare a sidebar, the `home_sidebar` file gets used as the default because this is the default specified in the config file:

```yaml
-
  scope:
    path: ""
    type: "pages"
  values:
    layout: "page"
    comments: true
    search: true
    sidebar: home_sidebar
    topnav: topnav
```

If you want to set different sidebar defaults based on different folders for your pages, specify your defaults like this:

```
-
  scope:
    path: "pages/mydoc"
    type: "pages"
  values:
    layout: "page"
    comments: true
    search: true
    sidebar: mydoc_sidebar
    topnav: topnav
```

This would load the `mydoc_sidebar` for each file in **pages/mydoc**. You could set different defaults for different path scopes.

For more detail on the sidebar, see [Sidebar navigation][mydoc_sidebar_navigation].

## Top navigation

The top navigation works just like the sidebar. You can specify which topnav data file should load by adding a `topnav` property in your page, like this:

```yaml
topnav: topnav
```

Here the topnav refers to the `_data/topnav.yml` file.

Because most topnav options will be the same, the `_config.yml` file specifies the topnav file as a default:

```yaml
-
  scope:
    path: ""
    type: "pages"
  values:
    layout: "page"
    comments: true
    search: true
    sidebar: home_sidebar
    topnav: topnav
```

## Sidebar syntax

The sidebar data file uses a specific YAML syntax that you must follow. Follow the sample pattern shown in the theme, specically looking at `mydoc_sidebar.yml` as an example: Here's a code sample showing all levels:

```yaml
entries:
- title: sidebar
  product: Jekyll Doc Theme
  version: 6.0
  folders:
  - title: Overview
    output: web, pdf
    folderitems:

    - title: Get started
      url: /index.html
      output: web, pdf
      type: homepage

    - title: Introduction
      url: /mydoc_introduction.html
      output: web, pdf

  - title: Release Notes
    output: web, pdf
    folderitems:

    - title: 6.0 Release notes
      url: /mydoc_release_notes_60.html
      output: web, pdf

    - title: 5.0 Release notes
      url: /mydoc_release_notes_50.html
      output: web, pdf

  - title: Tag archives
    output: web
    folderitems:

    - title: Tag archives overview
      url: /mydoc_tag_archives_overview.html
      output: web

      subfolders:
      - title: Tag archive pages
        output: web
        subfolderitems:

        - title: Formatting pages
          url: /tag_formatting.html
          output: web

        - title: Navigation pages
          url: /tag_navigation.html
          output: web

        - title: Content types pages
          url: /tag_content_types.html
          output: web
```

Each `folder` or `subfolder` must contain a `title` and `output` property. Each `folderitem` or `subfolderitem` must contain a `title`, `url`, and `output` property.

The two outputs available are `web` and `pdf`. (Even if you aren't publishing PDF, you still need to specify `output: web`).

The YAML syntax depends on exact spacing, so make sure you follow the pattern shown in the sample sidebars. See my [YAML tutorial](mydoc_yaml_tutorial) for more details about how YAML works.

{% include note.html content="If you have just one character of spacing off, Jekyll won't build due to the YAML syntax error. You'll see an error message in your console that says \"Error ... did not find expected key while parsing a block mapping at line 22 column 5. Error: Run jekyll build --trace for more information.\" If you encounter this, it usually refers to incorrect indentation or spacing in the YAML file. See the example mydoc_sidebar.yml file to see where your formatting went wrong." %}

Each level must have at least one topic before the next level starts. You can't have a second level that contains multiple third levels without having at least one standalone topic in the second level. If you need a hierarchy that has a folder that contains other folders and no loose topics, use a blank `-` item like this:

```yaml
entries:
- title: sidebar
  product: Jekyll Doc Theme
  version: 6.0
  folders:
  - title: Overview
    output: web, pdf
    folderitems:

    -

  - title: Release Notes
    output: web, pdf
    folderitems:

    - title: 6.0 Release notes
      url: /mydoc_release_notes_60.html
      output: web, pdf

    - title: 5.0 Release notes
      url: /mydoc_release_notes_50.html
      output: web, pdf

  - title: Installation
    output: web, pdf
    folderitems:

    - title: About Ruby, Gems, Bundler, etc.
      url: /mydoc_about_ruby_gems_etc.html
      output: web, pdf

    - title: Install Jekyll on Mac
      url: /mydoc_install_jekyll_on_mac.html
      output: web, pdf

    - title: Install Jekyll on Windows
      url: /mydoc_install_jekyll_on_windows.html
      output: web, pdf
```

To accommodate the title page and table of contents in PDF outputs, each product sidebar must list these pages before any other:

```yaml
- title:
  output: pdf
  type: frontmatter
  folderitems:
  - title:
    url: /titlepage
    output: pdf
    type: frontmatter
  - title:
    url: /tocpage
    output: pdf
    type: frontmatter
```

Leave the output as `output: pdf` for these frontmatter pages so that they don't appear in the web output.

For more detail on the sidebar, see [Sidebar navigation][mydoc_sidebar_navigation] and [YAML tutorial][mydoc_yaml_tutorial].

## Comments

The theme integrates [Commento.io](https://commento.io/) for comments below pages and posts. (This commenting service doesn't inject controversial tracking ads like Disqus does.) You will need to Commento.io account + plan ($5/month) to authorize Commento with your domain (no other configuration should be required). If you don't want comments, in the \_config.yml file, change the `comments: true` properties (under `defaults`) to `comments: false` in every instance. Then in the commento.html include file (inside \_includes), the `{% raw %}{% unless page.comments == false %} ... {% endunless %}{% endraw %}` logic will not insert the Commentio form.

## Relative links and offline viewing

This theme uses relative links throughout so that you can view the site offline and not worry about which server or directory you're hosting it. It's common with tech docs to push content to an internal server for review prior to pushing the content to an external server for publication. Because of the need for seamless transferrence from one host to another, the site has to use relative links.

To view pages locally on your machine (without the Jekyll preview server), they need to have the `.html` extension. The `permalink` property in the page's frontmatter (without surrounding slashes) is what pushes the files into the root directory when the site builds.

## Page frontmatter

When you write pages, include these same frontmatter properties with each page:

```yaml
---
title: "Some title"
tags: [sample1, sample2]
keywords: keyword1, keyword2, keyword3
last_updated: Month day, year
summary: "optional summary here"
sidebar: sidebarname
permalink: filename.html
---
```

(You will customize the values for each of these properties, of course.)

For titles, surrounding the title in quotes is optional, but if you have a colon in the title, you must surround the title with quotation marks. If you have a quotation mark inside the title, escape it first with a backlash `\`.

Values for `keywords` get populated into the metadata of the page for SEO.

Values for `tags` must be defined in your \_data/tags.yml list. You also need a corresponding tag file inside the tags folder pages/tags/ that follows the same pattern as the other tag files shown in the tags folder. (Jekyll won't auto-create these tag files.)

If you don't want the mini-TOC to show on a page (such as for the homepage or landing pages), add `toc: false` in the frontmatter.

The `permalink` value should be the same as your filename and include the ".html" file extension.

For more detail, see [Pages][mydoc_pages].

## Where to store your documentation topics

You can store your files for each product inside subfolders following the pattern shown in the theme. For example, product1, product2, etc, can be stored in their own subfolders inside the \_pages directory. Inside \_pages, you can store your topics inside sub-subfolders or sub-sub-folders to your heart's content. When Jekyll builds your site, it will pull the topics into the root directory and use the permalink for the URL.

Note that product1, product2, and mydoc are all just sample content to demonstrate how to add multiple products into the theme. You can freely delete that content.

For more information, see [Pages][mydoc_pages] and [Posts][mydoc_posts].

## Configure the top navigation

The top navigation bar's menu items are set through the \_data/topnav.yml file. Use the top navigation bar to provide links for navigating from one product to another, or to navigate to external resources.

For external URLs, use `external_url` in the item property, as shown in the example topnav.yml file. For internal links, use `url` the same was you do in the sidebar data files.

Note that the topnav has two sections: `topnav` and `topnav_dropdowns`. The topnav section contains single links, while the `topnav_dropdowns` section contains dropdown menus. The two sections are independent of each other.

## Generating PDF

If you want to generate PDF, you'll need a license for [Prince XML](http://www.princexml.com/). You will also need to [install Prince](http://www.princexml.com/doc/installing/).  You can generate PDFs by product (but not for every product on the site combined together into one massive PDF). Prince will work even without a license, but it will imprint a small Prince image on the first page, and you're supposed to buy the license to use it.

If you're on Windows, install [Git Bash client](https://git-for-windows.github.io/) rather than using the default Windows command prompt.

Open up the css/printstyles.css file and customize the email address (`youremail@domain.com`) that is listed there. This email address appears in the bottom left footer of the PDF output. You'll also need to create a PDF configuration file following the examples shown in the pdfconfigs folder, and also customize some build scripts following the same pattern shown in the root: pdf-product1.sh

See the section on [Generating PDFs][mydoc_generating_pdfs] for more details about setting the theme up for this output.

## Blogs / News

For blog posts, create your markdown files in the \_posts folder following the sample formats. Post file names always begin with the date (YYYY-MM-DD-title).

The news/news.html file displays the posts, and the news_archive.html file shows a yearly history of posts. In documentation, you might use the news to highlight product features outside of your documentation, or to provide release notes and other updates.

See [Posts][mydoc_posts] for more information.

## Markdown

This theme uses [kramdown markdown](http://kramdown.gettalong.org/). kramdown is similar to Github-flavored Markdown, except that when you have text that intercepts list items, the spacing of the intercepting text must align with the spacing of the first character after the space of a numbered list item. Basically, with your list item numbering, use two spaces after the dot in the number, like this:

```
1.  First item
2.  Second item
3.  Third item
```

When you want to insert paragraphs, notes, code snippets, or other matter in between the list items, use four spaces to indent. The four spaces will line up with the first letter of the list item (the <b>F</b>irst or <b>S</b>econd or <b>T</b>hird).

```
1.  First item

    ```
    alert("hello");
    ```

2.  Second item

    Some pig!

3.  Third item
```

See the topics under "Formatting" in the sidebar for more information.

## Automated links

If you want to use an automated system for managing links, see [Automated Links][mydoc_hyperlinks.html#automatedlinks]. This approach automatically creates a list of Markdown references to simplify linking.

## Other instructions

The content here is just a getting started guide only. For other details in working with the theme, see the various sections in the sidebar.




---
title: Alerts
tags: [formatting]
keywords: notes, tips, cautions, warnings, admonitions
last_updated: July 3, 2016
summary: "You can insert notes, tips, warnings, and important alerts in your content. These notes make use of Bootstrap styling and are available through data references such as site.data.alerts.note."
sidebar: mydoc_sidebar
permalink: mydoc_alerts.html
folder: mydoc
---

## About alerts

Alerts are little warnings, info, or other messages that you have called out in special formatting. In order to use these alerts or callouts, reference the appropriate value stored in the alerts.yml file as described in the following sections.

## Alerts

Similar to [inserting images][mydoc_images], you insert alerts through various includes that have been developed. These includes provide templates through which you pass parameters to easily populate the right HTML code.

```
{%raw%}{% include note.html content="This is my note. All the content I type here is treated as a single paragraph." %}{% endraw%}
```

Here's the result:

{% include note.html content="This is my note. All the content I type here is treated as a single paragraph." %}

With alerts, there's just one include property:

| Property | description |
|-------|--------|
| content | The content for the alert. |

## Using block level tags inside the alerts {#blockleveltags}

If you need multiple paragraphs, enter `<br/><br/>` tags. This is because block level tags aren't allowed here, as Kramdown is processing the content as Markdown despite the fact that the content is surrounded by HTML tags. Here's an example with a break:

```
{%raw%}{% include note.html content="This is my note. All the content I type here is treated as a single paragraph. <br/><br/> Now I'm typing on a  new line." %}{% endraw%}
```

Here's the result:

{% include note.html content="This is my note. All the content I type here is treated as a single paragraph. <br/><br/> Now I'm typing on a new line." %}

The include uses `markdown="span"` as an attribute, which means kramdown will process the entire `content` as a span. You can't use block elements such as `p` or `div` or `pre`. If you need these elements, you can either manually surround the content with the HTML from the include, or you can use these tags:

```
{% raw %}{{site.data.alerts.note}}
<p>This is my note.</p>
<pre>
def foo(x):<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;return x+1
</pre>
{{site.data.alerts.end}}{% endraw %}
```

**Result:**

{{site.data.alerts.note}}
<p>This is my note.</p>
<pre>
def foo(x):<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;return x+1
</pre>
{{site.data.alerts.end}}

The same Bootstrap code from the alert is stored in yaml files inside the \_data folder. (This was how I previously implemented this code, but since this method was prone to error and didn't trigger any build warnings or failures when incorrectly coded, I changed the approach to use includes instead.)

## Types of alerts available

There are four types of alerts you can leverage:

* note.html
* tip.html
* warning.html
* important.html

They function the same except they have a different color, icon, and alert word. You include the different types by selecting the include template you want. Here are samples of each alert:

{% include note.html content="This is my note." %}

{% include tip.html content="This is my tip." %}

{% include warning.html content="This is my warning." %}

{% include important.html content="This is my important info." %}

These alerts leverage includes stored in the \_include folder. The `content` option is a parameter that you pass to the include. In the include, the parameter is passed like this:

```
{% raw %}<div markdown="span" class="alert alert-info" role="alert"><i class="fa fa-info-circle"></i> <b>Note:</b> {{include.content}}{% endraw %}</div>
```

The content in `content="This is my note."` gets inserted into the `{% raw %}{{include.content}}}{% endraw %}` part of the template. You can follow this same pattern to build additional includes. See this [Jekyll screencast on includes](http://jekyll.tips/jekyll-casts/includes/) or [this screencast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJcn_PJ2100) for more information.

## Callouts

There's another type of callout available called callouts. This format is typically used for longer callout that spans more than one or two paragraphs, but really it's just a stylistic preference whether to use an alert or callout.

Here's the syntax for a callout:

```
{% raw %}{% include callout.html content="This is my callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter. I typically use this style of callout when I have more information that I want to share, often spanning multiple paragraphs. " type="primary" %} {% endraw %}
```

Here's the result:

{% include callout.html content="This is my callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter. I typically use this style of callout when I have more information that I want to share, often spanning multiple paragraphs." type="primary" %}

The available properties for callouts are as follows:

| Property | description |
|-------|--------|
| content | The content for the callout. |
| type | The style for the callout. Options are `danger`, `default`, `primary`, `success`, `info`, and `warning`.|

The types just define the color of the left border. Each of these callout types get inserted as a class name in the callout template. These class names correspond with styles in Bootstrap. These classes are common Bootstrap class names whose style attributes differ depending on your Bootstrap theme and style definitions.

Here's an example of each different type of callout:

{% include callout.html content="This is my **danger** type callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter." type="danger" %}

{% include callout.html content="This is my **default** type callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter." type="default" %}

{% include callout.html content="This is my **primary** type callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter." type="primary" %}

{% include callout.html content="This is my **success** type callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter." type="success" %}

{% include callout.html content="This is my **info** type callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter." type="info" %}

{% include callout.html content="This is my **warning** type callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter." type="warning" %}

Now that in contrast to alerts, callouts don't include the alert word (note, tip, warning, or important). You have to manually include it inside `content` if you want it.

To include paragraph breaks, use `<br/><br/>` inside the callout:

```
{% raw %}{% include callout.html content="**Important information**: This is my callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter. I typically use this style of callout when I have more information that I want to share, often spanning multiple paragraphs. <br/><br/>Here I am starting a new paragraph, because I have lots of information to share. You may wonder why I'm using line breaks instead of paragraph tags. This is because Kramdown processes the Markdown here as a span rather than a div (for whatever reason). Be grateful that you can be using Markdown at all inside of HTML. That's usually not allowed in Markdown syntax, but it's allowed here." type="primary" %} {% endraw %}
```

Here's the result:

{% include callout.html content="**Important information**: This is my callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter. I typically use this style of callout when I have more information that I want to share, often spanning multiple paragraphs. <br/><br/>Here I am starting a new paragraph, because I have lots of information to share. You may wonder why I'm using line breaks instead of paragraph tags. This is because Kramdown processes the Markdown here as a span rather than a div (for whatever reason). Be grateful that you can be using Markdown at all inside of HTML. That's usually not allowed in Markdown syntax, but it's allowed here." type="primary" %}

## Use Liquid variables inside parameters with includes

Suppose you have a product name or some other property that you're storing as a variable in your configuration file (\_config.yml), and you want to use this variable in the `content` parameter for your alert or callout. You will get an error if you use Liquid syntax inside a include parameter. For example, this syntax will produce an error:

```
{%raw%}{% include note.html content="The {{site.company}} is pleased to announce an upcoming release." %}{%endraw%}
```

The error will say something like this:

```
Liquid Exception: Invalid syntax for include tag. File contains invalid characters or sequences: ... Valid syntax: {%raw%}{% include file.ext param='value' param2='value' %}{%endraw%}
```

To use variables in your include parameters, you must use the "variable parameter" approach. First you use a `capture` tag to capture some content. Then you reference this captured tag in your include. Here's an example.

In my site configuration file (\_congfig.yml), I have a property called `company_name`.

```yaml
company_name: Your company
```

I want to use this variable in my note include.

First, before the note I capture the content for my note's include like this:

```liquid
{%raw%}{% capture company_note %}The {{site.company_name}} company is pleased to announce an upcoming release.{% endcapture %}{%endraw%}
```

Now reference the `company_note` in your `include` parameter like this:

```
{%raw%}{% include note.html content=company_note}{%endraw%}
```

Here's the result:

{% capture company_note %}The {{site.company_name}} is pleased to announce an upcoming release.{% endcapture %}
{% include note.html content=company_note %}

Note the omission of quotation marks with variable parameters.

Also note that instead of storing the variable in your site's configuration file, you could also put the variable in your page's frontmatter. Then instead of using `{%raw%}{{site.company_name}}{%endraw%}` you would use `{%raw%}{{page.company_name}}{%endraw%}`.

## Markdown inside of callouts and alerts

You can use Markdown inside of callouts and alerts, even though this content actually gets inserted inside of HTML in the include. This is one of the advantages of kramdown Markdown. The include template has an attribute of `markdown="span"` that allows for the processor to parse Markdown inside of HTML.

## Validity checking

If you have some of the syntax wrong with an alert or callout, you'll see an error when Jekyll tries to build your site. The error may look like this:

```
{% raw %}Liquid Exception: Invalid syntax for include tag: content="This is my **info** type callout. It has a border on the left whose color you define by passing a type parameter. type="info" Valid syntax: {% include file.ext param='value' param2='value' %} in mydoc/mydoc_alerts.md {% endraw %}
```

These errors are a good thing, because it lets you know there's an error in your syntax. Without the errors, you may not realize that you coded something incorrectly until you see the lack of alert or callout styling in your output.

In this case, the quotation marks aren't set correctly. I forgot the closing quotation mark for the content parameter include.

## Blast a warning to users on every page

If you want to blast a warning to users on every page, add the alert or callout to the \_layouts/page.html page right below the frontmatter. Every page using the page layout (all, by default) will show this message.

{% include links.html %}