Style Guide

From Documentation

Revision as of 01:27, 4 October 2006

This is the style guide for formatting text for the Functional Software online Documentation.

Font Styles

We have identified several different font requirements from the hardcopy manuals. Examples below are from actual manual text.

Command Line Input

Inline

To launch the default version, enter: cos duty

Code Blocks

Check your environment by running env from a duty3G shell:

$ cos duty -c ksh
duty: env | pg

Filenames

• Download the distribution file to /tmp on the target host.

COSmanager Navigation

• Select Application > Install.

Field and Buutton Names

• to make the newly installed duty3G the default version press Accept, then press Continue.

Variable Data

• two new audit trails are created: duty_log and duty_compl.
• Run FSinstall: ./FSinstall ./<file>

Product Links

• The first occurrence of a product name (backup3G, duty3G, etc) in a paragraph should be linked to the main documentation entry for that product.
• Product names in lists, or dot points need not be linked, unless they are the first mention in the relevant section of the page.
• If the context of the product mention indicates a specific part of the manual, the link should encircle the whole mention, and link to the relevant part of the document.

How To

1. To create a link to a main document level, simply use "[[product3G]]"
2. To link to a sub-section of a document, use "[[product3G/subPage | product3G Subpage]]"
3. To link to a specific part of a document, use "[[product3G/subPage#sectionName | Section Name]]"

Examples

1. [[COSmanager]] = COSmanager
2. [[COSmanager/User_Guide/Appendices | COSmanager User Guide Appendices]] = COSmanager User Guide Appendices
3. [[COSmanager/User_Guide/Appendices#Appendix_A_.E2.80.94_the_COSmanager_User_Interface| Appendix A—the COSmanager User Interface]] = Appendix A—the COSmanager User Interface

Documentation Styles

Inserting Images

Most of the images in the hard documentation are labelled and referred to in the text, for illustration. MediaWiki provides a mechanism for the insertion of a caption alongside an image.

Images are added to the Wiki using the Special Actions > Upload File menu on the far left. Once uploaded to the server, images can be referenced in the page using:

[[Image:imageName.extension|options|Alt Text or Caption]]

Options may be added in any order, pipe separated. Any unknown option will be interpreted as Alternate Image text, and multiple unknown entries will favour the later ones. That is, if there are three unknown options in the declaration, the third one is the one that will be used as the Alt text for the image.

Available options are:

left|right|center|none

Each of these are exclusive of the others. The one appearing latest in the declaration is the one that will be used.

left

image is left aligned, and text is floated to the right

right

image is right aligned and text is floated to the left

center

image is center aligned, and text wraps at the bottom of the image

none

image is left aligned, and text appears underneath the image.

sizepx

if your image is particularly large, you can use this to shrink the width of the image. This will keep the original scale of the image. Note that this actually generates a new image, rather than resizing the display of the original.

thumb

this will generate a thumbnail at a reasonable size (if no specific size is specified). It will also put the image into a frame, and make the caption appear. If no position is given, it will default to "right". A resize image icon will also be shown next to the caption

frame

this will place the image in a bordered box, with the Alt text as a caption below. This will not resize the image. If no position data is given, it will default to "right".

If none of the options are present (alt text and sizepx are allowed), the image will be displayed inline. All other scenarios result in the image being displayed as a block level element.

Also note, there is no call to use both thumb and frame, but they will not necessarily be cancelled out.

Cautions, Notes, Tips

Currently, cautions, notes and tips look like:

Note

This is a note, of some description

This look is achieved using the following code:

----
;Note: This is a note, of some description
----

Obviously, change the text to suit your needs.

The wiki code of four dashes in a rown (----) is translated to an html Horizontal Rule element.

The Semi-colon/colon notation is actually a definition list, with the semi-colon representing the Definition term (html element DT) and the text after the colon representing the Definition definition (html element DD).