• Launchpad entry: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-api-website

• Created: 2012-06-28

• Contributors: mhall119, jonobacon, john.vrbanac

Create a new web project for hosting searchable, browseable and editable documentation for the APIs that are used in Ubuntu application development.

Rationale

Our API documentation is sparse and in static HTML. This makes it difficult to find specific documentation.

Required Functionality

• Parse qdoc and save it in discrete fields in a database
• Display API in multiple programming languages (C++, QML/Javascript)
• Allow searching the API fields
• Allow multiple versions of the same API (Qt 5.0, Qt 5.1, etc)
• Define collections of API versions as a distro release (Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 12.10, etc)
• Allow linking between one API and another
• Allow manual addition of descriptions, explanations and examples (using markup)

Data Model

The API data will be parsed from many different sources, pre-rendered into HTML, and stored along with meta-data about it in the database.

Users will be able to contribute snippets, linked articles and images to expand upon the generated documentation.

Common Models

These models will be used to define the platform that application developers can target. A platform is the combination of libraries and APIs provided by a given release of a distribution.

Distribution

This model will represent a reusable reference to a distro (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc)

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• name - Name of the distribution

• url - URL to the distro's homepage

• description - Long text description of the distro

Release

This model will represent a specific release of a distribution, and will be used to define what libraries and versions of them are available in that release.

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• distro - Foreign Key to a Distribution record

• version - Official release version name or number

• name - Development codename for the release

• released - Date when this was released

• expires - Date that support for the release ends

PlatformSection

This model will be used to group PlatformItems by areas of focus, such as Graphical Interface, Filesystem, Multimedia, etc.

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• section_name - Name of the section

• section_description - Short text (on sentence) describing the contents of the section

PlatformItem

This model is used to define a platform, it links API docs of a specific version to a specific Release

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• release - Foreign key to a DistroRelease record

• section - Foreign ey to a PlatformSection record

• packages - List of distro packages that provide this library

Language

Will represent one of the available programming languages in the system

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• language_name - Name of the programming language

• url - Optional URL for more information about the language

API Doc Models

These models contain the API docs themselves, pre-rendered to HTML by the import process.

Namespace

This model identifies a programming namespace for a collection of Element records

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• platform_item - Foreign key to PlatformItem record

• name - Name of the Namespace

Element

This model contains the pre-rendered HTML for an API element

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• namespace - Foreign key to a Namespace record

• language - Foreign key to a Language record

• name - Name of the Element

• data - Pre-rendered HTML content for this api element

Search Models

These models contain searchable meta-data about the API elements

Class

This model contains information about a programming language class, it's methods and properties

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• rendered_element - Foreign key to an Element record

• namespace - Foreign key to a Namespace record

• name - Searchable name for this class

• inherits - List of class names this one inherits from

• member_names - List of member names

• description - Searchable description

• doc_string - Documentation provided in the code itself

BitField

This model contains information about a programming language bitfield and it's available field names

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• rendered_element - Foreign key to an Element record

• namespace - Foreign key to a Namespace record

• name - Searchable name for this class

• field_names - List of field names

• description - Searchable description

• doc_string - Documentation provided in the code itself

Enum

This model contains information about a programming language enumeration and it's available value names

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• rendered_element - Foreign key to an Element record

• namespace - Foreign key to a Namespace record

• name - Searchable name for this class

• enumerated_names - List of value names

• description - Searchable description

• doc_string - Documentation provided in the code itself

Related Models

The frontend will have a number of Django models specific to Ubuntu, making use for the GDN data models.

Link

Will link a tutorial or question on AskUbuntu.com to an api element

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• rendered_element - Foreign key to an Element record

• name - Short text of the link

• link_type - Type of link, either Question or Tutorial

• url - URL to the website with the target content

Snippet

Will contain short pieces of code demonstrating the use of an api element

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• rendered_element - Foreign key to an Element record

• name - Short name of the code snippet

• code - Long text field containing the full code snippet

Image

An uploaded image showing the visible result of an api element

• id - Auto-generated primary key

• rendered_element - Foreign key to an Element record

• name - Short name or title of the image

• caption - Short caption (one sentence) describing the image

• url - URL to the image

Frontend

The web frontend should be built using Django templates, wrapping the pre-rendered HTML for each API element with a standard header, footer and other navigation.

Theme

This project should use the community Django theme as much as possible, with site-specific css and javascript being added to the above web frontend code.

URLs

Paths will have two parts, the first will contain the Distro, then DistroRelease and ProgrammingLang. After that will come the Namespace and Element name:

• /api/ubuntu/12.04/python /Unity/LauncherEntry/
• /api/ubuntu/12.04/c /Unity/LauncherEntry/

Views should contain anchor links to all API elements on the page:

• /api/ubuntu/12.04/python/Unity/LauncherEntry/#get_for_desktop_file

Site Index

The main page of the site should provide a brief (on paragraph) text explaining the purpose of the site, followed by a list of DistroRelease records. This list will contain only supported releases (those that have not reached their expiration_date) ordered by release_date, with an associated screenshot.

• 

Release Page

The Distro Release page will list all of the PlatformItem records for the DistroRelease, grouped by PlatformSection. Each item will be presented by the GDN Namespace name, followed by links for each of the languages supported by that Namespace as defined by the LanguageNamespace data models.

• 

Initial PlatformSections for Ubuntu are:

• System
• Desktop
• Multimedia
• User Accounts
• Online Services

Namespace Page

Here we break the library down into sections so the user can more easily browse them. We also provide a list of tutorials of general interest to GTK+ (these could be from the cookbook portion of the site. We may also want to include some general user-added documentation here (e.g. such as an introduction to GTK). A quick reference list of all the classes, enums and top-level functions is displayed on the left-hand side.

Element Page

When a user clicks on a class, enum or bitfield we see the information page. This page has a number of features:

• The page is broken into sections, links to each section are displayed at the top of the page.
• The class definition, heirarchy and an example screenshot (of relevant) are displayed first
• The API (constructors, methods, signal and properties) are shown below the class definition
• This reference content is displayed for the appropriately selected language (the language selector is at the top of all pages).

• Sections for code snippets, tutorials and AskUbuntu questions are displayed below the API, with links for submitting additional content for those sections

• We would enable Disqus commenting on each page too.
• The quick reference list of classes, enums and top-level functions remains available on the left-hand side.

Search Results Page

Editing Content

To edit content users will need to be in a particular launchpad group (for example the docs team could be part of the group) and users who have permission will see small edit button next to each field (similar to Launchpad). There inline editing can occur:

The site would support markdown format to make it easy for users to edit and submit content.

Management Commands

import-qt

Given a Qt library XML file (qdoc DITA output), import its data into the database. If a previous version of the same namespace if specified, forward copy all related records (snippets, tutorials, questions and comments.

create-release

Given a distro and previous release, create a new release record and forward-copy the previous release's platform items to it.

User stories

• Alice is writing an new app in QML, she wants to lookup specific QML components as well as their methods, properties and signals.
• Bob is adding an Application Indicator to his program, and needs to see the correct API to use as well as example of it's use.

Work Items

Unresolved issues

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