Several tools for building open source project documentation have been introduced, including Docsify, VuePress, and Hexo. One thing these tools have in common is that they require some development and deployment work, which relies on Github Pages or a home-built server. So have that kind of tool out of the box, recently found a lot of open source projects are using sparrow to build a document website, experience a very good, recommend to everyone!

SpringBoot e-commerce project mall (50K + STAR) address: github.com/macrozheng/…

Language finches profile

The Language Is the next generation of knowledge base in the cloud. It can write project documents like books, has a professional editor (Markdown conversion support), easy team collaboration features.

The main usage scenarios are as follows:

  • Personal notes: The knowledge base has the function of public and private. The private knowledge base can be used as online cloud notes, which is convenient for us to record bits and precipitation knowledge.
  • Column blog: If you don’t want to build your own blog site, you can create it.
  • Project documentation: Have you seen a project documentation that allows multiple people to collaborate?
  • Official documentation: can be used as product description and help manual.

Results show

Let’s take a look at the finished product effect, out of the box, the interface is pretty good!

The core concept

We need to understand the concept before we can use it. Here are the core concepts, and then the interfaces.

  • First let’s look at the diagram of each of the core concepts to help understand them:

  • Spaces: Spaces are similar to the concept of a company or organization, where we can manage teams, knowledge bases, knowledge, etc.

  • Teams: The teams in the space can be linked to your actual organizational structure, such as departmental teams, project teams, etc.

  • Knowledge base: Knowledge base is the carrier of knowledge content, just like a book, you can reorganize and classify the knowledge content in the knowledge base.

  • Knowledge: Content in the knowledge base, which can be documents.

Set up

Next, we asked Phrasal Sparrow to build an open source project document, taking my open source e-commerce project Mall as an example.

Quickly build

  • So first let’s click create in the upper left cornerspaceFor storing the team and knowledge base;

  • And I’m gonna go ahead and createThe knowledge base, because our knowledge base is mainly used for storing documents, so selectDocument knowledge base, and then enter the name and introduction.

  • Once the knowledge base is created, we can add to the knowledge baseThe documentJust copy the document you wrote with Markdown and click on it in the upper right cornerImmediate transformation;

  • After successful conversion, the display effect is as follows. Is it much simpler than building a project document website?

  • It is worth mentioning here that when we copy the article, the Language bird will automatically upload online pictures for us, and many blog sites have this function as well.

  • If you want to change the document directory of the knowledge base, for example I want the whole secondary directory, you can use itChoreography directoryFunction;

Customize the Home Page

In fact, by now, we have learned how to make an open source project documentation site, but at this time the document site’s home page is just a directory, so it is a bit monotonous, if we want to enrich the home page content, I need to create a team, and then customize the team’s home page;

  • First of all, let’s create a team. ChooseThe official documentationThe template.

  • Then fill in your name, profile picture and profile picture.

  • And then we can go throughCustomize the Home PageFunction, the use of graphical interface to complete a home page, the following is I have completed a good home page effect;

  • Here I added search, knowledge base, custom content three modules, if you want to enrich the home page, you can add more modules to try;

  • It is best to transfer your knowledge base to the created one on your knowledge base Settings pageteamGo in;

  • Next visit your team home page and a standard open source project documentation site is born.

Open access

If you want to build a private document site, the above operation is basically enough, but if you want to build a public document site, you need to do the following.

  • Unfortunately, neither the team nor the knowledge base in the new space can be set up for everyone on the Internet to access, only the following three access permissions are supported;

  • In order for the team to be publicly accessible, we need to create it in the default personal spaceKnowledge team, you can chooseThe official documentationThe template.

  • At this point we can see that the team’s visibility becomesInternet visibilityThis is a truly open team;

  • What we need to do is to transfer the knowledge base to the team through import and export functions, and export functions inKnowledge Base Settings -> Advanced Settings, select Export as.lakebookFormat;

  • Then create a knowledge base in this knowledge group, set the scope toInternet visibility, and import.lakebookFile;

  • Then follow the previous steps to customize the front page of the knowledge group, a publicly accessible open source project documentation website is born!

conclusion

Through a wave of practice with the language sparrow to build open source project documentation, we can see that this approach is much simpler than using Docsify to build a website from scratch, requiring no coding and no server purchase. No wonder many open source projects are using it to build documentation sites, of course, the language sparrow’s functions are not only these, used to make online cloud notes are also very good, if you are interested, you can explore the next!

The official website

www.yuque.com/

In this paper, making github.com/macrozheng/… Already included, welcome everyone Star!