Contributing to the Docker Machine documentation

The documentation in this directory is part of the this documentation. Docker uses the Hugo static generator to convert project Markdown files to a static HTML site.

You don't need to be a Hugo expert to contribute to the machine documentation. If you are familiar with Markdown, you can modify the content in the docs files.

If you want to add a new file or change the location of the document in the menu, you do need to know a little more. If you want the detail of contributing, use our contributor guide.

Documentation contributing workflow

1. Edit a Markdown file in the tree.

2. Save your changes.

3. Make sure all your changes maintain an 80 character line wrap.

   All check lines you've written. Don't wrap content you didn't change material.

4. Make sure you are in the docs subdirectory.

5. Build the documentation.

   $ make docs
    ---> ffcf3f6c4e97
   Removing intermediate container a676414185e8
   Successfully built ffcf3f6c4e97
   docker run --rm -it  -e AWS_S3_BUCKET -e NOCACHE -p 8000:8000 -e DOCKERHOST "docs-base:test-tooling" hugo server --port=8000 --baseUrl=192.168.59.103 --bind=0.0.0.0
   ERROR: 2015/06/13 MenuEntry's .Url is deprecated and will be removed in Hugo 0.15. Use .URL instead.
   0 of 4 drafts rendered
   0 future content
   12 pages created
   0 paginator pages created
   0 tags created
   0 categories created
   in 55 ms
   Serving pages from /docs/public
   Web Server is available at http://0.0.0.0:8000/
   Press Ctrl+C to stop
   

6. Open the available server in your browser.

   The documentation server has the complete menu but only the Docker machine documentation resolves. You can't access the other project docs from this localized build.

Tips on Hugo metadata and menu positioning

The top of each Docker machine documentation file contains TOML metadata. The metadata is commented out to prevent it from appearing in GitHub.

<!--[metadata]>
+++
title = "Extending services in machine"
description = "How to use Docker machine's extends keyword to share configuration between files and projects"
keywords = ["fig, composition, machine, docker, orchestration, documentation, docs"]
[menu.main]
parent="workw_machine"
weight=2
+++
<![end-metadata]-->  

The metadata alone has this structure:

+++
title = "Extending services in machine"
description = "How to use Docker machine's extends keyword to share configuration between files and projects"
keywords = ["fig, composition, machine, docker, orchestration, documentation, docs"]
[menu.main]
parent="workw_machine"
weight=2
+++

The [menu.main] section refers to navigation defined in the main Docker menu. This metadata says add a menu item called Extending services in machine to the menu with the smn_workdw_machine identifier. If you locate the menu in the configuration, you'll find Create multi-container applications is the menu title.

You can move an article in the tree by specifying a new parent. You can shift the location of the item by changing its weight. Higher numbers are heavier and shift the item to the bottom of menu. Low or no numbers shift it up.

Other key documentation repositories

The docker/docs-base repository contains the Hugo theme and menu configuration. If you open the Dockerfile you'll see the make docs relies on this as a base image for building the machine documentation.

The docker/docs.docker.com repository contains build system for building the Docker documentation site. Fork this repository to build the entire documentation site.