DOCS-WRITING-GUIDE-EN.md

EMQ Documentation Writing Guide

Table of Contents

• EMQ Documentation Writing Guide
  • Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • Left menu configuration
    • Configuration files
    • Configuration examples
    • Notes
  • Markdown writing specifications
    • Must have a level 1 heading
    • Headings must obey the hierarchy
    • Code block
    • Escape special characters
    • Resource reference
    • Special grammars
    • Differentiated compilation
    • EMQX API doc
    • Configuration
      • Commands to copy generated markdown

Introduction

EMQ documents are written in Markdown format and use Vuepress compiling the Markdown file to HTML file.

The final presentation of the documentation can be divided into three parts:

• Left menu.

  This part needs to be configured mutually by the document writer. The configuration contains three parts: directory name, directory hierarchy, and directory order.

• Intermediate document content.

  This part will display the specific content of the Markdown file.

• In-page index on the right hand.

  This part will automatically display all level 2 headings within the Markdown file. Therefore, a sensible Markdown heading will allow users to quickly understand the outline of document content and jump around the page.

Left menu configuration

Configuration files

The menu configuration file is dir.yaml in the document root directory. This is shown below:

Configuration examples

We take the following configuration for Introduction as an example.

The corresponding configuration is:

{
  "en": [
    {
      "title": "Introduction",
      "children": [
        {
          "title": "EMQX Broker",
          "path": "./"
        },
        {
          "title": "Features List",
          "path": "introduction/checklist"
        }
      ]
    },
    ...
  ]
  "cn": [
    ...
  ]
}

Corresponding file structure:

.
├── en_US
│   ├── README.md
│   └── introduction
│       └── checklist.md

The corresponding page routing of the file structure:

Relative path to the file	Page routing address
/README.md	/
/introduction/checklist.md	/introduction/checklist.html

Notes

• The contents of the path configuration item must not be duplicated;
• path only need to specify the Markdown file, and can not use paths with anchors;
• Nested next-level directories using children, supporting multiple levels of nesting;
• When using children, you can now specify their path at the same time. This means that even if a directory has subdirectories, it can still be set as a page;

Markdown writing specifications

EMQ documents support standard Markdown specification syntax, but the following conventions need to be adhered to when writing documents.

Must have a level 1 heading

Each Markdown file must have a globally unique level 1 heading that clearly represents the content of the file.

Headings must obey the hierarchy

The document will read the level 2 heading as the right-hand navigation, obeying the hierarchical relationship to ensure a clear directory structure.

# h1
  ## h2
    ### h3
  ## h2
    ### h3

Code block

• Code blocks in documents are uniformly wrapped in three backquotes ``` and using indentation style blocks is forbidden.
• Try to append a valid language alias when using code blocks to show correct syntax highlighting.

Escape special characters

• If you need the original article to output the <xxx> tag and this tag is not in a code block or in-line code, you need to add a backslash \ before the tag.

  Use ### log set-level \<Level> instead of ### log set-level <Level>;

• If you need the original article to output the double curly braces {{ xxx }}, you need to wrap it with v-pre (you don't need to wrap it when inside a code block).

  Input

  ::: v-pre
  {{ This will be displayed as-is }}
  :::

  Output

  {{ This will be displayed as-is }}

Resource reference

• The name of the image must be in English and contain no spaces.

• Relative paths must be used for image references.

  For example, using ![image](./assets/bridge_mqtt.png) instead of ![image](/assets/bridge_mqtt.png)

Special grammars

The documentation supports the following special syntax.

::: tip
This is a tip
:::

::: warning
This is a warning
:::

::: danger
This is a dangerous warning
:::

The output is as follows.

Differentiated compilation

Broker and Enterprise share the same document repository and the differentiated compilation can be implemented by using the following syntax.

# Broker Docs
{% emqxce %}
  contents
{% endemqxce %}

# Enterprise Docs
{% emqxee %}
  contents
{% endemqxee %}

Correct

{% emqxee %}
  contents
{% endemqxee %}

or

{% emqxee %} contents {% endemqxee %}

Incorrect

{% emqxee %} contents
{% endemqxee %}

or

{% emqxee %}
contents {% endemqxee %}

EMQX API doc

EMQX first automatically generates a JSON formatted description file (swagger.json) that conforms to the OpenAPI 3.0 specification. It is then rendered and displayed using Redocly.

The swagger.json file is saved in the ./redocly directory. After each official release of the EMQX version, the API documentation needs to be updated by following the steps below:

• Start the latest EMQX v5 node
  • Need to distinguish between the open source version and enterprise version
  • Need to configure swagger.json output language by dashboard.i18n_lang = en | zh
• Execute the ./rewrite-swagger.sh <ce | ee> [en | zh] script in the current repository according to the version and language
• Commit the changed swagger.json file to this git repo
• Send a pull request

You can also upload swagger.json to https://redocly.github.io/redoc/ to preview the API doc rendering results.

Configuration

The configuration docs are generated from source code. Steps to update:

1. Re-build EMQX (opensource and enterprise edition)
2. Copy the gnerated md files to this repo (see commands below)
3. Rename the heading-1 of each file
   • Configuration Files (for en_US/admin/cfg-*.md)
   • 配置文件 (in zh_CN/admin/cfg-*.md)

Commands to copy generated markdown

For opensource edition

cp /path/to/emqx/project/_build/emqx/lib/emqx_dashboard/priv/www/static/config-zh.md ./zh_CN/admin/cfg-ce.md
cp /path/to/emqx/project/_build/emqx/lib/emqx_dashboard/priv/www/static/config-en.md ./en_US/admin/cfg-ce.md

For enterprise edition

cp /path/to/emqx/project/_build/emqx-enterprise/lib/emqx_dashboard/priv/www/static/config-zh.md ./zh_CN/admin/cfg-ee.md
cp /path/to/emqx/project/_build/emqx-enterprise/lib/emqx_dashboard/priv/www/static/config-en.md ./en_US/admin/cfg-ee.md