Contributing

Nice, you have decided that something is missing or should be expanded upon, or perhaps just want to fix a typo. The instructions are written with the expectation that you are at least somewhat familiar with setting up a development environment. If you do not feel up to the task you should try and contact the study board at your division as they should know how to get in touch with the authors.

Request changes

If you have feedback you can file an issue on GitHub. If you have a GitHub account this is an easy process!

To do it you will select New issue on this page and then press Get started on "Feature request". You can then fill out the template, remember to put a descriptive title of what you want and describe why you want it. Here is an example request.

Issue example

Installation

To set up the development environment, you first of all need mdBook installed.

Now cd into preprocessor and run cargo build --release which will build our custom preprocessor.

You should then be able to open the book by running mdbook serve --open in the project root, which will open the web page and dynamically update as you edit it.

Contributing

To start editing pages you just have to edit the files in the ´src´ directory. The pages are written in Markdown, if you are unfamiliar with it I recommend reading this.

When you are done, you should open a pull request on the Data101 GitHub page and describe what you have changed. You may then receive feedback on your edit if there is something that has to be changed, it will then be merged with the project and reflected in the actual book!

Editing & Proofreading

Here are some tips for those who are helping test this book. Remember to fill in this google form as you go. It is totally OK to skip chapters.

  • Try all different operating systems
  • Try all different education programs (you do not have to test combinations of OS and programs)
  • Measure how long time it took to complete a chapter.
  • Test links to see if they go to where you expect them to.
  • We are mostly interested in what content should be changed, if everyone focuses on spelling mistakes then we would be wasting your time.
  • As you go, write down things that were especially good/bad or immediately caught your attention.

When you are done, submit the form

Modifications to mdBook

To better support the flow of the book some modifications have been made. All modifications in the theme directory can be found by searching for BEGIN DAT101.

Operating system specific content

To remove unnecessary information for some readers you can apply CSS classes to hide content for readers not using the specified os. The syntax is {{ .macos }}. See this in action on the Git page. You can use windows, linux or macos. This will hide the section from those using other operating systems. This is useful when describing installation processes.

You can also use {{begin .<os>}}

program specific content

You can also use the same syntax as above to hide content from other programs. The possible identifiers are Data, IT and DV.

Keyboard shortcuts

To write keyboard shortcuts, use the !kbd command. For example like this \!kbd[!ctrl+B]. !ctrl is a special command that can be used within !kbd, and it gets replaced with Ctrl or depending on the operating system the user chooses.

Inlining icons

You can include icons as well, use \!icon[icon] to display a windows icon. Any icon from Font Awesome can be used.

Things to keep in mind

  • To remain consistent, use British English.

Deploying

This book is automatically deployed using GitHub Actions. Any change pushed to the main branch is compiled and uploaded to https://data101.dtek.se.