Collection-based Raku Documentation

Description Collects the Raku Documentation's content sources existing in github repo, creates output suitable for a running with Cro.

Author Richard Hainsworth, aka finanalyst

Installation
Raku-Doc
Problems
Plugins
Docker
Copyright and License

This Module provides a local website available via a browser at localhost:3000 of the Raku documentation. The Module uses Collection and Raku::Pod::Render to link all the Rakudoc (aka Pod6) files together. The Cro app and HTML output files are created using the Website mode, but other modes can be created. For more information about creating different modes, and for an explanation about how to create Websites from other content sources, see Collection.

Installation

zef install Collection-Raku-Documentation

This installs the Collection (and other) dependencies and the Raku-Docs executable. These in turn install the the other main distributions, Cro and Raku::Pod::Render. By default Raku::Pod::Render does not install the highlighter automatically because node.js and npm are required. So these will be needed and then install the highlighter, as described in the Raku::Pod::Render README.md file. Then the following should be possible

raku-pod-render-install-highlighter

Raku-Doc

On a Linux based distributions, Raku-Doc depends on git and unrar, which typically are installed by default, to get and unpack other files.

Under Linux, in a terminal, the following will lead to the installation of a local copy of Raku docs and start a Cro app that will make the HTML documentation available in a browser at localhost:30000, and produce a progress status bar for the longer stages.

mkdir ~/My-Local-Raku-Documentation
cd My-Local-Raku-Documentation
Raku-Doc Init

This sets up the Collection directory, and installs the dependencies.

It does not clone a copy of the Raku/doc repository because an existing version may be available on the system.

Consequently, the user needs to clone the Raku docs repository using something like git clone https://github.com/Raku/doc.git raku-docs. Then the path used can be put into the config.raku file in the sources-refresh key. Once the raku-docs are ready, the INIT stage is complete.

For example, to render the full Raku Docs, the following would work, where raku-local is a local directory.

- raku-local
    - raku-docs
    - Website
    config.raku

After the Init stage, calling Raku-Doc without any other options implies the mode Website with default options. Other modes (see the Collection README for more information about mode) are planned, such as EPUB and PDF.

The configuration files in Website can be modified, for example to change the port at which the browser can locate the documentation.

The Raku Documentation source files are regularly updated. The Website mode is configured to pull the latest versions of the source files into the Collection whenever Raku-Doc is run, which then updates the cache for any sources that have changed, and then re-render all the html files that are affected. These stages are automatically called by running Raku-Doc with the config defaults given.

Raku-Doc can be called with other options, which are passed to the collect sub in Collection. In addition, the options can be changed in the Website config files. The Collection documentation contains a description of all the options. Some of them are:

Briefly, the options are:

no-status

Caching and rendering can take time, so a progress bar is provided for the terminal. By setting no-status on the command line or in the Website config files, no status bar is shown.

no-refresh

This prevents Raku-Doc (actually Collection::collect) from getting new changes to the documentation sources, and so no changes will be made to the cache.

recompile

By default, only source files that have changed are cached. This option deletes the source cache, forcing all source files to be recompiled.

full-render

Even if there only some or no changes to the source files, all the files in the cache will be rendered again. The same effect can be achieved by deleting the Website/html directory.

collection-info

Turns on tracing for Collection. Reports when milestones passed, and the plugins at each milestone.

Problems

Collection is still being actively developed.

When running Raku-Doc with a sources-refresh key set to a git pull stanza, Raku-Doc teminates after a git pull. Workaround: run Raku-Doc again.
The aim is to only update HTML files that have changed. However, the time taken to reload cached html is slower than to generate them ad novo. So it is best to run Raku-Doc --full-render each time. Caching of Pod6 files, however, works well.

Plugins

This distribution contains a number of Collection plugins that are intended to be more generic than just for Raku-Documentation-Collection.

There is also a test facility, so cd Website ;; prove -re 'raku -I.' t will run tests on the Website mode.

Another testing facility is the executable test-plugins in the repository, but not yet added as a resource. It is used in the Website directory and runs the plugin tests.

Docker

A docker image (finanalyst/collection-raku) is available that already has everything installed. It is intended for running on a server but where copies of the Website directory and config.raku files in this distribution and a clone of the Rau/doc repository exists in a directory called raku-doc are present on the server.

The aim of the docker image is to reduce the hassle of installing Cro, Raku::Pod::Render, node.js and npm and installing the highlighter. The Raku/doc repository is regularly updated and quite large, so putting it in the container seems less performant. Keeping Website available for change allows for the configuration options to be changed, and for new plugins to be added.

The final HTML is served by Cro on port 30000, but this can be configured in Website/configs/01-config.raku.

The intention is for the image to be used as follows (assuming docker is installed):

sudo docker pull finanalyst/collection-raku

sudo docker run -d -p 30000:30000 -v /home/web/raku-docs:raku-docs -v /home/web/Website:Website --rm finanalyst/collection-raku

/home/web/raku-docs is the path to a clone of the Raku-docs repository created with git clone https://github.com/Raku/doc.git raku-docs.

/home/web/Website is the path to a the Website directory created by running Raku-Doc Init from this distribution. Keeping the Website directory out side the docker image allows for local tweaking of the configuration and plugin files. The config.raku in the docker images, which defines where Collection will look for files, expects the Raku pod files at raku-docs/docs and the Website mode directory at Website. The html is generated in Website/html, so outside the docker container.

The docker image will run a git pull on raku-docs, render those html files that have changed, then serve the results at 30000. Naturally, the port can be changed using docker say to 18080 as

sudo docker run -d -p 18080:30000  -v /home/web/raku-docs:raku-docs -v /home/web/Website:Website --rm finanalyst/collection-raku

Copyright and License

LICENSE Artistic-2.0

Rendered from README at 2021-03-05T14:07:47Z