Some preparatory steps must be taken before editing the FreeBSD documentation. New contributors will interact with other members of the FreeBSD Documentation Team, which can assist in learning to use XML and the suggestions in Section 12.3, “Style Guide”. If a new user contributes regularly, a Documentation Team member may be assigned as a mentor to guide the user through the process from contributor to documentation committer.
Subscribe to the FreeBSD documentation project mailing list. Some mailing list
members also interact on the #bsddocs
IRC channel on EFnet.
Install the
textproc/docproj
package or port. This meta-port installs all of the
software needed to edit and build FreeBSD documentation.
Install a local working copy of the documentation
from a mirror of the FreeBSD repository. If /usr/doc
already exists, move
or delete it first to prevent file conflicts.
%
svn checkout https://svn0.us-west.FreeBSD.org
/doc/head /usr/doc
For the fastest download, pick the nearest mirror from the list of Subversion mirror sites.
The editor to be used should be configured as follows:
Word wrap set to 70 characters.
Tab stops set to 2.
Replace each group of 8 leading spaces with a single tab.
Some specific editor configurations are listed in Chapter 12, Writing Style.
Run svn up
to update the local
working copy. Edit the documentation files that need
changes. Before making major changes to a file, ask for
input on the FreeBSD documentation project mailing list.
To learn which tags and entities are needed to achieve the desired formatting, compare some text in the HTML formatted version of the document to the text, tags, and entities in the XML file. References to the commonly used tags and entities can be found in Chapter 8, XHTML Markup and Chapter 9, DocBook Markup.
After editing, check for problems by running:
%
igor -R filename.xml | less -RS
Review the output and edit the file to fix any problems shown, then rerun the command to find any remaining problems. Repeat until all of the errors that are fixable are resolved. If an error seems unsolvable, ask for assistance on the FreeBSD documentation project mailing list.
Always build-test changes before
submitting them. By default, typing
make
in the top-level directory of
the type of documentation being edited will generate that
documentation in split HTML format. For example, to build
the English version of the Handbook in
HTML, type make
in
the en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/
directory. This step is necessary to make sure that edits
do not break the build.
After successfully completing the previous steps, generate a “diff file” of the changes:
%
cd /usr/doc
%
svn diff > bsdinstall
.diff.txt
Give the diff file a name that describes the contents.
In the example above, changes have been made to the
bsdinstall
portion
of the Handbook.
Submit the diff file using the web-based Problem
Report system or with send-pr(1). If using
the web form, input a synopsis of [patch]
short description of
problem
. Select the category
docs
and the class
doc-bug
. The body of the message
should contain a short description of the edits and any
important discussion points. Use the
button to
attach the .diff.txt
.
Remember that the FDP is comprised of volunteers who review edits in their spare time and who live in different time zones around the globe. It can take some time to review changes. If a response is not received in a reasonable amount of time, send a follow-up email to the FreeBSD documentation project mailing list and ask if anyone has had a chance to review the patch or if additional information is required.
All FreeBSD documents are available for download at http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/
Questions that are not answered by the
documentation may be
sent to <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>.
Send questions about this document to <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org>.