Add Documentation

Quick links:

The documentation TYPO3 Core Changelog and documentation for System Extensions is maintained in the Core.

Quickstart to contribute documentation

To work on the Core documentation of TYPO3, you need to work with the main TYPO3 mono-repository. You can not contribute Documentation patches on single read-only repositories like https://github.com/typo3-cms/felogin through the GitHub interface!

You can, however, use the GitHub interface and contribute to https://github.com/TYPO3/typo3/tree/main/typo3/sysext/felogin. Submitting a GitHub PR will result in a GitHub Action workflow that closes your PR, transfers it to forge, transfers it to gerrit, and link them to each other. That workflow can be prone to errors though, especially if a branch other than main is involved.

So, if possible you could better follow the Quickstart guide to set up a Core contribution installation. A lot can be left out, as you do not necessarily even need a TYPO3 instance running when you only want to contribute documentation.

The minimal steps to contribute documentation "the right way" (and to allow you to properly participate in our review workflow) is this:

  1. Prerequisites

    From the Quickstart Prerequisites you need:

    1. Operating System
    2. GIT client
    3. SSH client + keys
    4. Optional Bonus: Docker (to render documentation), a suitable Text-Editor

  2. Set-up accounts

    You need all of the Quickstart Accounts (My TYPO3, GitHub, Gerrit, Forge)

  3. Set-up GIT

    Set up and clone the TYPO3 mono-repository as described in Quickstart GIT.

    Note: the steps Quick Start: Set up DDEV and Quick Start: Set up TYPO3 are not needed for Documentation-only use.

  4. Start documenting

    Now you can start editing files in, for example, typo3/sysext/felogin/Documentation/Index.rst and when you are done, you can render the documentation (see Render any system documentation locally) to verify the look of your changes.

  5. Create issue

    Once you feel comfortable and happy with your patch, you go to create an issue on Forge. Choose the category Documentation and enter an appropriate description like:

    Tracker: Task

    Subject: Add example for EXT:felogin RedirectLoginHandler

    Description: (Describe what kind of documentation changes you made. Mention to which TYPO3 version it applies)

  6. Submit patch

    Now follow the steps outlined in Quick Start: Create a patch, and refer to the Documentation files you edited, instead of the PHP files given as examples there. This will then submit your patch to our Gerrit review instance.

Changelog

Some patches require a .rst (reStructuredText) Changelog file describing the change. Not all patches need an entry in the Changelog. Check the list below. Also see the current TYPO3 Core Changelog for some examples.

Every file may optionally contain tags, but it must contain at least a NotScanned, PartiallyScanned or FullyScanned tag for the extension scanner. See Extension scanner in TYPO3 Explained for more information.

Render the Changelog locally

If you have Docker or Podman installed you can try out the rendering of the changelog locally:

cd typo3/sysext/core
docker run --rm --pull always -v $(pwd):/project -it ghcr.io/typo3-documentation/render-guides:latest --config=Documentation
xdg-open "Documentation-GENERATED-temp/Index.html"
Copied! 
cd typo3/sysext/core
docker run --rm --pull always -v $(pwd):/project -it ghcr.io/typo3-documentation/render-guides:latest --config=Documentation
xdg-open "Documentation-GENERATED-temp/Index.html"
Copied!

Render any system documentation locally

As above, you can render any extension locally, too. You need to change the directory to the extension directory you want to render. For EXT:felogin that would be:

cd typo3/sysext/felogin
docker run --rm --pull always -v $(pwd):/project -it ghcr.io/typo3-documentation/render-guides:latest --config=Documentation
xdg-open "Documentation-GENERATED-temp/Index.html"
Copied! 
cd typo3/sysext/felogin
docker run --rm --pull always -v $(pwd):/project -it ghcr.io/typo3-documentation/render-guides:latest --config=Documentation
xdg-open "Documentation-GENERATED-temp/Index.html"
Copied!

Forger reST Helper

Use the Forger reST Helper to generate changelogs.

This is strongly recommended because the tool will generate correctly formatted files. You can always add more to the .rst file directly later.

Select the type of rst snippet you want to create, enter your issue number and click the search button. Select appropriate tags.

When you are done, copy the generated text and create a file with the same name as suggested in the generator in typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog/....

Types of Changes

There are four different types of changes which have to follow a certain format and always need to go into typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog/<release>/.

Choose one which fits your patch:

Breaking Changes

A patch moved or removed a specific part of core functionality that may break extensions if they use this part.

Mandatory sections:

  1. Description - why things had to break backwards compatibility.
  2. Impact - how will the change affect your installation.
  3. Affected Installations - describe scenarios under which circumstances a TYPO3 install will be affected by this change.
  4. Migration - provide instructions what needs to be done to get things working again. Explicitly mention if no migration is possible.

Deprecations

A patch deprecates a certain core functionality for a planned removal. See more information: Deprecations

Mandatory sections:

  1. Description - why things had to be deprecated.
  2. Impact - how will the change affect your installation.
  3. Affected Installations - describe scenarios under which circumstances a TYPO3 install will be affected by this change.
  4. Migration - provide instructions what needs to be done to get things working again. Explicitly mention if no migration is possible.

Features

A patch adds new functionality.

Mandatory sections:

  1. Description - what can the new feature do.
  2. Impact - how users are affected by this new feature.

Important Information

Anything that does not fit the other categories but is important enough to require a Changelog entry.

  1. Description - describe what is so important it needed an rst snippet

Check Your rst File

When your change is finished, you can run the following script to check that your rst file is ok. The script will check all files in typo3/sysext/core/Documentation/Changelog:

shell command 
Build/Scripts/validateRstFiles.php
Copied!

This script will check if the .rst files contain all mandatory tags that are required for the Changelog. It will not do a reST syntax check.

In order to make sure that your file contains no syntax errors and will be rendered correctly, do one or more of the following:

Policy for Changing the Main Documentation

Once a new TYPO3 release comes out, the main documentation (e.g. TYPO3 Explained, TCA Reference etc.) must be updated.

The procedure is documented in Apply changelog entries to the docs.

Document System Extensions

Documentation for system extensions is maintained within a Documentation directory in the respective system extension directory, e.g. typo3/sysext/form/Documentation.

Not all system extensions have their own documentation. Some documentation (e.g. for the system extension core) is maintained within the TYPO3 Explained.

If in doubt, ask in the #typo3-cms-coredev channel on Slack.

For starting a system extension from scratch, please see How to document an extension.

For an overview of the rendered documentation for system extensions, see System Extensions.

When you have made changes to the documentation, you can render locally with docker to test your changes as described in Render the Changelog locally.

More Information