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Documentation Style Guide

A guide on the house style, structure and content for this site. It should be viewed both in its rendered form and as source to understand how the page elements are formed. You should read this section before contributing to the documentation.

Overview

Stroom’s documentation is created using the static site generator Hugo . This converts markdown content into a rich HTML site. The markdown content in stroom-docs is not intended to be read as-is in GitHub, it needs to be rendered first.

The full documentation for Hugo can be found here . The site also uses the Docsy theme for Hugo. The documentation for Docsy can be found here . The Docsy theme provides a lot of the styling but also adds other features and shortcodes. You should consult the Docsy documentation in the first instance.

To maintain a degree of consistency in the documentation you should use this section as a reference for how to layout your content.

Shortcodes

The documentation makes heavy use of Hugo shortcodes for adding page elements such as links, icons, images, etc. Shortcodes are a compact way of inserting reusable content into a page and make it easy to change how a page element is styled by just changing the shortcode in one place.

There are numerous shortcodes available to use:

An example of using a short code in your markdown is:

Click the {{< stroom-icon "save.svg" "Save Document" >}} icon.

This calls the shortcode stroom-icon with the positional arguments save.svg and Save Document. Shortcodes can either use positional arguments or named arguments depending on how they have been written.

This is an example of calling a shortcode with named arguments:

Click the {{< stroom-icon name="settings.svg" colour="red" >}} icon.

Check the documentation for specific shortcode to see how to call it.

Editor snippets and shortcodes

To make your life much easier when editing the documentation it is highly recommended to use a text editor that supports text snippets. Snippets make it very quick to add shortcodes into the documentation.

For example the following UltiSnips (for Vim) and VS Code snippets adds a skeleton front matter to a page.

UltiSnips (for Vim)

snippet hfront "Hugo markdown metadata front matter" b
---
title: "${1:Title}"
linkTitle: "$1"
#weight:
date: `date "+%Y-%m-%d"`
tags: $2
description: >
  $3
---

$0
endsnippet

JSON (VS Code)

{
  "hugo-front-matter": {
    "prefix": "hfront",
    "body": [
      "---",
      "title: \"${1:Title}\"",
      "linkTitle: \"$1\"",
      "#weight:",
      "date: `date \"+%Y-%m-%d\"`",
      "tags: $2",
      "description: >",
      "  $3",
      "---",
      "",
      "$0"
    ],
    "description": "Hugo markdown metadata front matter"
  }
}

1 - Site Structure

Describes the file and directory structure for the site.

File names

Ideally files and directories should be named using lower-kebab-case, e.g. site-structure.md.

Directory structure

All page content, i.e. markdown, is located underneath content/en. This directory has one sub-directory for each of the top nav bar items.

Stroom-Docs top level sections

Each of the following sections can have a different styling that is appropriate to its content, e.g. documentation vs blog.

Landing Page

The landing page is located at content/en/_index.html. This is the page that users will initially see, unless visiting via a direct link.

About (about)

A single page describing what stroom is.

Documentation (docs)

This is where all the documentation for installing, administering and using stroom is located.

News/Releases (news)

This is a blog type section that contains a page for each new Stroom release and a set of blog posts for Stroom news items. The pages in the two sub-sections (news and releases) are displayed in chronalogical order based on the date key in the page’s front matter.

News (news/news)

This sub section has a flat structure with one .md file per news item. Each file should be named in the form YYYYMMDD-<name>.md. The date key should be set in the front matter to match the date of the file. Hugo will use this date key to order the files in the menu. The date should be set in ISO 8601 date format, i.e.

date: 2021-07-09
Releases (news/releases)

Each new minor version release of Stroom should have a file in this directory. They should be named in the form vXX.YY.md where XX is the zero padded major version and YY is the zero padded minor version, e.g. v07.01. The zero padding is to ensure correct ordering by default withouth having to resort to using weight in the front matter.

The front matter should be set along these lines:

---
title: "Version 7.0"
linkTitle: "7.0"
date: 2021-07-07
description: >
  Key new features and changes present in v7.0 of Stroom and Stroom-Proxy.
---

Community (community)

This section provides information for people wanting to contribute to the development of Stroom and its peripheral repositories. This can include developer documentation for building and developing Stroom. This has the same structure as docs.

Documentation content

The docs and community top level sections have a tree structure for their content. Each of these directories will contain three different types of entities:

  • Section directories
  • Section index files (_index.md)
  • Pages (e.g. building.md)

The following is an example of part of the structure of the community section.

├── documentation/                 Documentation section directory
│   ├── building.md                Page
│   ├── _index.md                  Documentation section index page
│   ├── style-guide/               Style guide section directory
│   │   ├── basic-elements.md      Page
│   │   ├── icon-gallery.md        Page     
│   │   ├── _index.md              Style guide section index page
│   │   ├── site-structure.md      Page
│   │   └── using-images.md        Page
│   └── versions.md                Page
└── roadmap.md                     Page

A section can essentially contain branches (sections) and leaves (pages). A branch (i.e. a section) is defined by a directory that contains an _index.md file. The front matter in this index file defines the meta data for that section, e.g. the title, date, tags, description, etc. A leaf (i.e. a page with no children) is just a markdown file with front matter. The front matter for branches and leaves works in the same way.

How do I…?

Add a child page

If you already have a section that you want to add a new child page to then you will already have a structure like this:

└── my-section/
    ├── _index.md
    ├── a-page.md
    └── another-page.md

To add a new page simple create a .md file for the new page in the section directory, e.g.

└── my-section/
    ├── _index.md
    ├── a-page.md
    ├── another-page.md
    └── new-page.md

Add the front matter to the top of the new page file. e.g.

---
title: "My Long Wordy Title"
linkTitle: "My Short Title"
weight: 20
date: 2022-01-27
tags: 
description: >
  A new page describing stuff.
---

The new page should now appear in the list of child pages on the section page and in the left hand navigation pane.

If you want to control the position of the new page relative to its siblings then adjust the weight of this page and that of its siblings to get the order that you want.

Add a new section

If you want to add a sub-section to an existin section then you will already have a structure like this:

└── my-section/
    ├── _index.md
    ├── a-page.md
    └── another-page.md

To add a new sub-section create a sub-directory within the existing directory (with a name that roughly matches the section name) and create an _index.md file within it, e.g.

└── my-section/
    ├── my-new-sub-section/
    │   └── _index.md
    ├── _index.md
    ├── a-page.md
    └── another-page.md

In the _index.md file add front matter to the top, e.g.

---
title: "My Long Wordy Section Title"
linkTitle: "My Short Section Title"
weight: 20
date: 2022-01-27
tags: 
description: >
  A new section for stuff.
---

As with pages, adjust the weight of the section and its siblings to get the order you require.

To add pages to this new section see Add a new child page above.

If you are not sure if you need to add a whole new sub-section or just a child page you can just add a new sub-section and add content to the _index.md file as if it were a simple page. If you later realise that you need child pages then move the content out into a child page and create other sibling pages to it.

2 - Front Matter

The meta data (or front matter) for pages/sections.

Front matter in Hugo is a set of meta data at the top of each page that controls which menus include the page as well as providing information about the page, e.g.

---
title: "Site Structure"
linkTitle: "Site Structure"
weight: 10
date: 2021-07-20
tags:
  - style
  - TODO
description: >
  Describes the file and directory structure for the site.
---

Hugo supports front matter in YAML, JSON and TOML, however for consistency all front matter in stroom-docs should be in YAML format.

This is the section/page title and will become the h1 heading (in HTML/Markdown terms) on the section/page. The linkTitle is the text that is displayed in the left hand navigation sidebar. It should be the same as title unless the title is quite long, in which case a shorter version should be used so it fits in the sidebar.

Weight

The weight controls the position of the page/section within the other pages/sections of its parent. i.e. it controls the order of the pages/sections in the left hand navigation bar and the list of child items on a section index. If no weight is provided then Hugo will use date, then linkTitle, then the file path.

To assist with re-ordering pages you can use the script change_weights.sh in the root of the repo. E.g. to change the order of the child items of the user-guide section do the following:

./change_weight.sh content/en/docs/user-guide

Date

The date should be set/updated to the current date when a page/section is created or modified. This data is show at the bottom of the page and tells the reader when the page was last updated.

Tags

In the front matter, tags is a list of tags that are applicable to the document and allow documents to be searched for by tag. Tag names should conform to the following conventions:

  • Lower kebab case, i.e. reference-data, even for abbreviations.
  • The only exception to the case rule is TODO, which is always upper case.
  • Singular, i.e. pipeline rather than pipelines.

Avoid using too many unique tag names as it will make the list of tags in the sidebar to large to be useful. When setting a tag on a document consult the list of existing tags to ensure consistency and to see if a more applicable tag already exists.

Add the TODO tag to a page when the page is incomplete. This makes it easy to find areas of the documentation that are in need of attention.

Cascading tags

If you want to apply a tag to all descendant pages of a section you can add this to the front matter of the section:

cascade:
  tags:
    - install

This will then apply all of tags added to tags to each descendant page.

Description

A short description of what the page/section covers. This will be shown on the index page of its parent.

3 - Markdown Style Conventions

House style conventions for basic Markdown use.

Line breaks

Sentence per line

Each sentence must start on a new line, even in numbered/bulleted lists. This makes it easier to move sentences around or to remove them and limits the scope of changes when it comes to git diffs and merges. When the markdown is rendered into HTML/PDF, the sentences will be joined into a single paragraph.

See this site for more of the reasons behind sentence per line. Though this link relates to Asciidoc, the same logic applies to markdown.

For example:

Do this

This is the first sentence of the paragraph.
This is the second.
This it the third and final one.

This is the start of a new paragraph.

Which renders as:

This is the first sentence of the paragraph. This is the second. This it the third and final one.

This is the start of a new paragraph.

Don’t do this

This is the first sentence of the paragraph. This is the second. This it the third and final one.

This is the start of a new paragraph.

Which renders as:

This is the first sentence of the paragraph. This is the second. This it the third and final one.

This is the start of a new paragraph.

No hard line breaks.

Long lines should not be hard wrapped by adding line breaks. You should instead rely on your editor to soft wrap long lines that cannot fit on the visible screen area. The process of hard wrapping long lines will vary from editor to editor and not all editors support re-wrapping lines after the content has changed. It also relies on each person’s editor being configured to the same wrap column. Adding hard wraps also means a slight change at the start of a paragraph will potentially cause all subsequent lines to be re-wrapped and thus appear as a substantial difference in the commit.

## Don't do this

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis
nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu
fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in
culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.


## Do this instead

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Both examples render as:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Forced line breaks

In some circumstances, e.g. a list of items that is not bulleted, you may want to prevent the joining of adjacent lines when rendered. You can force a line break by adding two spaces ␣␣ at the end of a line.

Do this

Paragraph 1.

One␣␣
Two␣␣
Three

Paragraph 2.

Which renders as:

Paragraph 1.

One
Two
Three

Paragraph 2.

Don’t do this

Paragraph 1.

One
Two
Three

Paragraph 2.

Which renders as:

Paragraph 1.

One Two Three

Paragraph 2.

Blank lines and spacing

  • A heading line should be preceded by two blank lines and followed by one blank line. This makes the headings clearer in the markdown source. The only exception to this is when one heading come immediately after its parent heading with no text in between.
  • A fenced code block should be surrounded by one blank line.
  • Paragraphs should be separated by one blank line.
  • Bulleted and numbered lists should be surrounded by one blank line.
  • Additional sentences in bulleted/numbered lists should be indented for clarity in the raw markdown.

e.g:

The text belonging to the previous heading.


## A Heading

## A sub heading

The text of this heading.
A second sentence in this paragraph.

A new paragraph.
A second sentence in this paragraph.

Here are some bullets:

* Bullet Z.
* Bullet A.
  This is an additional sentence for this bullet point.
  And so is this.
  * Sub-bullet AX.
    This is an additional sentence for this bullet point.
    And so is this.
* Bullet F.

Here are some numbered steps:

1. Step 1.
1. Step 2.
1. Step 3.

Another random line.


## Another Heading

Headings

The page title uses heading level one (# in markdown) so all markdown headings should be >= 2 (## , ### , #### , etc.). Headings should have two blank lines above them for clarity in the raw markdown. The # characters should always be followed by one space character

The following is an example of the heading levels.

# Heading level 1

DON'T use this level in your documents.
Level one headings will be generated from the `title` in the document's front matter.


## Heading level 2

This heading level is effectively level 1 on the page and right hand pane, e.g. `1`.


### Heading level 3

This heading level is effectively level 2 on the page and right hand pane, e.g. `1.1`.


#### Heading level 4

This heading level is effectively level 3 on the page and right hand pane, e.g. `1.1.1`.


##### Heading level 5

This heading level is effectively level 4 on the page but not shown on the right hand pane.


###### Heading level 6

This heading level is effectively level 5 on the page but not shown on the right hand pane.

Markdown supports an alternate style for headings, as shown below. Don’t use this style as it is not clear from the symbols what the heading level is.


Heading level 1
===============

Don't use this style.


Heading level 2
---------------

Don't use this style.

Table of contents

The page table of contents (right hand pane) is controlled by this in config.toml.

[markup]
  [markup.tableOfContents]
    endLevel = 4
    ordered = false
    startLevel = 2

The maximum depth of the table of contents can be controlled with endLevel.

Heading example (level 2)

This is an example of a level 2 heading.

Heading example (level 3)

This is an example of a level 3 heading.

Heading example (level 4)

This is an example of a level 4 heading.

Heading example (level 5)

This is an example of a level 5 heading.

Heading example (level 6)

This is an example of a level 6 heading.

Block quotes

Single line

A simple paragraph block quote.

> This is a simple block quote.
> This is the second sentence on the same line.

This is a simple block quote. This is the second sentence on the same line.

Multi line

A pair of spaces at the end of a line can be used to force line breaks, e.g.:

> This is a multi line block quote.␣␣
> This is the second line.␣␣
> This is the third line.

This is a multi line block quote.
This is the second line.
This is the third line.

Lists

Bulleted list

Rendered

  • Fruit. Make sure you get your five-a-day.
  • Meat
    • Beef
    • Chicken
  • Vegetables.

Markdown

* Fruit.
  Make sure you get your five-a-day.
* Meat
    * Beef
    * Chicken
* Vegetables.

Numbered List

Numbered list items should all be numbered with number 1 so that the markdown render handles the consecutive numbering. This makes the file easier to edit and means the addition of one item in the middle does not cause a change to all the lines after it, e.g:

Rendered

  1. Item one. This is some extra content for step 1.
  2. Item two.
    1. Sub-item A.
    2. Sub-item B.
  3. Item three.

Markdown

1. Item one.
   This is some extra content for step 1.
1. Item two.
    1. Sub-item A.
    1. Sub-item B.
1. Item three.

Check List

Rendered

  • Item 1. This is some extra content for item 1.
  • Item 2.
    • Item 2a.
    • Item 2b.
  • Item 3.

Markdown

* [ ] Item 1.
      This is some extra content for item 1.
* [ ] Item 2.
    * [x] Item 2a.
    * [ ] Item 2b.
* [x] Item 3.

Definition list

Rendered

Name
Godzilla
Birthplace
Japan
Color
Green

Markdown

Name
: Godzilla

Birthplace
: Japan

Color
: Green

Tables

Tables should ideally have its columns aligned in the markdown for clarity in the raw markdown.

## Ideally do this

| Artist          | Album          | Year |
|-----------------|----------------|------|
| Michael Jackson | Thriller       | 1982 |
| Prince          | Purple Rain    | 1984 |
| Beastie Boys    | License to Ill | 1986 |

## Or this

Artist          | Album          | Year
----------------|----------------|-----
Michael Jackson | Thriller       | 1982
Prince          | Purple Rain    | 1984
Beastie Boys    | License to Ill | 1986

## But this is acceptable

| Artist | Album | Year |
|-|-|-|
| Michael Jackson | Thriller | 1982 |
| Prince | Purple Rain | 1984 |
| Beastie Boys | License to Ill | 1986 |

All will produce the same result, however, the latter can be harder to read in markdown form. The first two are harder to create and update in markdown form.

Artist Album Year
Michael Jackson Thriller 1982
Prince Purple Rain 1984
Beastie Boys License to Ill 1986

If you are editing the documentation with Vim then the plugin tabular is very useful for auto aligning markdown tables. Simply position the cursor somewhere in the table and do :Tabularize\| to tabularize on the | character.

Line breaks in cells

If you need a line break in a table cell then use <br>.

Comments

As the Markdown content is processed by Hugo and is not intended to be read in its raw Markdown form it means it is possible to include comments in the content. This can be useful when you want to leave development comments in the content that are not for display in the rendered site. Comments are done with the HTML comment syntax, i.e.

<!-- This is a comment -->

<!--
This is a
mult-line comment
-->

4 - Additional Page Elements

Examples of various markdown and Hugo page elements.

While links can be added using standard markdown link syntax you should use Hugo shortcodes to add them. The advantage of the shortcode is that Hugo will check for broken links when building the site.

As this site is deployed to environments with no internet connect and is also released in PDF form it is important that any links to locations outside of the this site (i.e. on the internet) are clearly marked. To include an external link do the following:

  • This is a link to Stroom on Github with a title.

    This is a link to {{< external-link "Stroom on Github" "https://github.com/gchq/stroom" >}} with a title.
    
  • This is the same link with no title, https://github.com/gchq/stroom .

    This is the same link with no title, {{< external-link "https://github.com/gchq/stroom" >}}.
    

Versioned URLs

Some external links are to other Stroom URLs are versioned. If you need to link to a site external to this one that has the Stroom version in the URL then you can use the tag @@VERSION@@ in the URL. This will be translated into the Stroom version of this site, as seen in the Stroom Version (…) drop down at the top of the page. This saves you from having to update the URL on each release of Stroom.

Anchors

You can link to headings on a page using its anchor. The anchor for a heading is the heading text with:

  • All non-alphanumeric characters removed
  • Spaces replaced with a -
  • All characters made lower case
  • Multiple consecutive - characters, e.g. --- are replaced with a single -

For example the heading Mr O'Neil's 1st Event (something) becomes as an anchor #mr-oneils-1st-event-something.

See The link examples below that use anchors.

Duplicate anchors

If you have two headings on the same page then Hugo will suffix the anchors with a sequential number to ensure uniqueness of the anchor. For example, with the following markdown:

## Apples

### Example

## Oranges

### Example

Hugo will create the following anchors:

apples
example
oranges
example-1

If you want to avoid confusion and removed the risk of anchors breaking if new headings are added in the middle, then you can explicitly name anchors:

## Apples

### Example {#apples-example}

## Oranges

### Example {#oranges-example}

This is only worth doing if you want to link to these heading.

Shortcode links are slightly more verbose to type but are preferable to markdown style links as the link target will be checked at site build time so you know all the links are correct.

Hugo has ref and relref link shortcodes. Use only relref as this will be translated into a relative path when the site it built ensuring that the site can be run from any base path.

The following are some example of different links to internal content.

Heading anchor

  • A link to a heading anchor on this page.

    [link]({{< relref "#alerts" >}})
    

Absolute path

  • A link to a heading anchor on another page, using an absolute path.

    [link]({{< relref "community/documentation/style-guide/using-images#captions" >}})
    

Relative path

  • A link to a heading anchor on page above this one, using a relative path.

    [link]({{< relref "../versions" >}})
    

Unique page name

  • A link to a heading anchor on another page, using only the unique page name. This is quicker to type and won’t break if pages are moved but will not work if the page name is not unique.

    [link]({{< relref "running#basic-configuration" >}})
    
  • A link to a branch/section in the document tree, i.e. to the \_index.md.

    [link]({{< relref "docs/HOWTOs" >}})
    
  • A link to the next page in the current section. If the current page is the last page in the section then no link will be displayed. What the next page is is defined by the page weights or the default ordering of pages in the section.

    This is useful when you have a set of pages in a section that have a natural flow, e.g. where the pages in a section are the sequential steps in an installation guide.

    The link looks like this(with the page title in the link text and the hover tip showing both the page title and the description):

    Next page - Images
    {{< next-page >}}
    
  • A link to the previous page in the current section. If the current page is the last page in the section then no link will be displayed. What the previous page is is defined by the page weights or the default ordering of pages in the section.

    This is useful when you have a set of pages in a section that have a natural flow, e.g. where the pages in a section are the sequential steps in an installation guide.

    The link looks like this(with the page title in the link text and the hover tip showing both the page title and the description):

    Previous page - Markdown Style Conventions
    {{< prev-page >}}
    

Markdown style links should not contain the .md extension as this will be stripped when the site is generated, e.g. for the following content:

/content
   /en
      /docs
         /section-x
            /sub-section-a
               _index.md
               page1.md
               page2.md
            /sub-section-b
               _index.md
               page1.md
               page2.md

This will become:

/docs
   /section-x
      /sub-section-a
         /page1
         /page2
      /sub-section-b
         /page1
         /page2

in the rendered site.

  • A link to a heading anchor on this page.

    [link](#alerts)
    
  • A link to a heading anchor on another page, using a relative link.

    [link](../using-images#captions)
    
  • A link to a heading anchor on another page, using an absolute link.

    [link](/docs/style-guide/using-images#captions)
    

You can create a link to download a file, like these:

{{< file-link "quick-start-guide/mock_stroom_data.csv" >}}Link Title{{< /file-link >}}

{{< file-link "quick-start-guide/mock_stroom_data.csv" />}}

All paths are relative to /assets/files/.

If you need to create a link to an item in the Glossary you can use the glossary shortcode. E.g.

  • A feed is something you should know about, and so are streams .

    A {{< glossary "feed" >}} is something you should know about, and so are {{< glossary "stream" "streams" >}}.
    

The argument to the shortcode is the glossary term. This should match the heading text on the Glossary page exactly, ignoring case. It will be converted to an HTML anchor so that you can link directly to the heading for the term in question.

Code

Inline code

Rendered

Inline code looks like this.

Markdown

Inline code `looks like this`.

Code blocks (simple)

Code blocks should be surrounded with fences ```language-type and ``` with the language type always specified to ensure correct syntax highlighting. If the language type is not supplied then styling will be different to fenced blocks with a language.

This is a markdown example of a fenced code block containing XML content.

Rendered

<root>
  <child attr="xxx">some val</child>
</root>

Markdown

```xml
<root>
  <child attr="xxx">some val</child>
</root>
```

The following are some example of rendered code blocks:

Plain Text

id,date,time
1,6/2/2018,10:18
2,12/6/2017,5:58
3,6/7/2018,11:58

YAML

---
root:
  someKey: "value"

XML

<root>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
</root>

bash

echo "${VAR}"

code blocks (advanced)

If you need to show line numbers or to highlight sections of a code block then you can use the code-block shortcode. This shortcode takes the following named arguments:

  • language - The language for syntax highlighting. Defaults to text.
  • lines - Whether to display line numbers or not (true|false). Defaults to true.
  • highlight - A comma separate list of lines to highlight. Ranges of line numbers can be specified, e.g. 2-8,13,25-30. Defaults to no line highlighting.
  • start - The line number to start at. Defaults to 1.

The following is an example of how to use the shortcode.

{{< code-block language="xml" highlight="2-5,8" >}}
<root>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
</root>
{{< /code-block >}}

Default behaviour

{{< code-block >}}
...
{{< /code-block >}}
<root>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
</root>

With line numbers, a language and a starting line number

{{< code-block language="xml" start="5" >}}
...
{{< /code-block >}}
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
</root>

With line numbers, a language and highlighted lines

{{< code-block language="xml" highlight="2-5,8" >}}
...
{{< /code-block >}}
<root>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
</root>

With a language and highlighted lines, but without line numbers

{{< code-block language="xml" lines="false" highlight="2-5,8" >}}
...
{{< /code-block >}}
<root>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
  <child attr="xxx">
    some val
  </child>
</root>

Command line blocks

To demonstrate commands being run on the command line you can use the command-line shortcode. This results in a code block with the shell prompt displayed on the left of each line. It also means the prompt part is not selectable when the user selects the text for copy/pasting.

The shortcode takes the following positional arguments:

  1. username - The username to appear in the prompt, defaults to user.
  2. hostname - The hostname to appear in the prompt, defaults to localhost.
  3. language - The language of the content (a valid and installed prism language name language name), defaults to bash.

If you want to display shell output then prefix each output line with (out). It will then be displayed without a prompt. To display a blank line with no prompt then have a line with just (out) in it.

If your shell command is very long then you can split it into multiple lines using the shell line continuation character \ which must be the last character on the line. If this character is present then it will be rendered with a different prompt to indicate it is a continuation. Readers can then copy/past the muli-line command into a shell and run it.

Rendered

echo hello \
world
(out)hello world
id
(out)uid=1000(david) gid=1000(david)

Markdown

{{< command-line "david" "wopr" >}}
echo hello \
world
(out)hello world
id
(out)uid=1000(david) gid=1000(david)
{{</ command-line >}}

MySQL shell blocks

To demonstrate commands being run in a MySQL shell you can use the sql-shell shortcode. This works in a similar way to the command-line shortcode but has a different prompt and no shortcode arguments.

If you want to display shell output then prefix each output line with (out). It will then be displayed without a prompt.

If your sql statement is multi-line, prefix all lines except the first with (con) (for continuation). Continuation lines will be rendered with a continuation prompt (->).

To display a blank line with no prompt then have a line with just (out) in it.

Rendered

select *
(con)from token_type
(con)limit 2;
(out)+----+------+
(out)| id | type |
(out)+----+------+
(out)|  1 | user |
(out)|  2 | api  |
(out)+----+------+
(out)2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
(out)
select database();
(out)+------------+
(out)| database() |
(out)+------------+
(out)| stroom     |
(out)+------------+
(out)1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Markdown

{{< sql-shell >}}
select *
(con)from token_type
(con)limit 2;
(con)+----+------+
(con)| id | type |
(con)+----+------+
(con)|  1 | user |
(con)|  2 | api  |
(con)+----+------+
(out)2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
(out)
select database();
(out)+------------+
(out)| database() |
(out)+------------+
(out)| stroom     |
(out)+------------+
(out)1 row in set (0.00 sec)
{{</ sql-shell >}}

Inline files

Some code or text examples may be too large for a fenced block so you can put the content in a separate file and include it in-line like so.

<?xml version="1.1" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<dataSplitter
    xmlns="data-splitter:3"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="data-splitter:3 file://data-splitter-v3.0.1.xsd"
    version="3.0">
  <!-- 
  GEOHOST REFERENCE FEED:
  
  CHANGE HISTORY
  v1.0.0 - 2020-02-09 John Doe
  
  This is a reference feed for device Logical and Geographic data.
  
  The feed provides for each device
  * the device FQDN
  * the device IP Address
  * the device Country location (using ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes)
  * the device Site location
  * the device Building location
  * the device Room location
  *the device TimeZone location (both standard then daylight timezone offsets from UTC)
  
  The data is a TAB delimited file with the first line providing headings.
  
  Example data:
  
  FQDN	IPAddress	Country	Site	Building	Room	TimeZones
stroomnode00.strmdev00.org	192.168.2.245	GBR	Bristol-S00	GZero	R00	+00:00/+01:00
stroomnode01.strmdev01.org	192.168.3.117	AUS	Sydney-S04	R6	5-134	+10:00/+11:00
host01.company4.org	192.168.4.220	USA	LosAngeles-S19	ILM	C5-54-2	-08:00/-07:00
  
  -->
  
  <!-- Match the heading line - split on newline and match a maximum of one line  -->
  <split delimiter="\n" maxMatch="1">
   
   <!-- Store each heading and note we split fields on the TAB (&#9;) character -->
     <group>
       <split delimiter="&#9;">
         <var id="heading"/>
       </split>
     </group>
   </split>
   
  !-- Match all other data lines - splitting on newline -->
  <split delimiter="\n">
    <group>
      <!-- Store each field using the column heading number for each column ($heading$1) and note we split fields on the TAB (&#9;) character -->
       <split delimiter="&#9;">
         <data name="$heading$1" value="$1"/>
       </split>
    </group>
  </split>
</dataSplitter>



Example in-line XML file ( Download in_line_file_example.xml )

The card has a maximum height and will show scrollbars as required.

Examples of how to use in-line files are:

{{< textfile "style-guide/in_line_file_example.xml" "xml" >}}My caption{{< /textfile >}}
{{< textfile "style-guide/in_line_file_example.xml" >}}My caption{{< /textfile >}}
{{< textfile "style-guide/in_line_file_example.xml" />}}

Supported languages

This site uses Prismjs for syntax highlighing code blocks. PrismJs supports a large number of different languages however only certain languages have been included with this site. The language specified in the markdown code fence or in the command-line shortcode must be in the list of included languages.

The list of included language names are:

sh
bash
css
csv
groovy
http
java
javascript
jq
json
python
regex
scss
sql
text
toml
xml
yaml

To include extra languages in this site you need to build a new version of the prism.js and prism.css files. This can be done here . When creating new versions of these file you must include the languages and plugins already included else you may break this site. The generated files are then copied over the top of /static/css/prism.css and /static/js/prism.js. Both files include a comment at the top with the link to the PrismJs download page with the currently included items selected. Use this link then add any additional items, bearing in mind the size of the download and its impact on page load times.

An example of the download link is https://prismjs.com/download.html#themes=prism&languages=markup+css+clike+javascript+bash+csv+groovy+java+jq+json+markdown+python+regex+scss+sql+toml+yaml&plugins=line-highlight+line-numbers+command-line+toolbar+copy-to-clipboard+treeview */

Alerts

Various page/block level quotes for drawing attention to things.

Warning block Quote

The markdown for this is:

{{% warning %}}
This is a warning that can contain _markdown_.
{{% /warning %}}

Page level warning

Warning

This is a warning that can contain markdown.

The markdown for this is:

{{% page-warning %}}
This is a warning that can contain _markdown_.
{{% /page-warning %}}

Note block Quote

The markdown for this is:

{{% note %}}
This is a note that can contain **markdown**.
{{% /note %}}

See also block Quote

Useful for linking to other areas of the documentation or to external sites.

The markdown for this is:

{{% see-also %}}
[Note block quote]({{< relref "#note-block-quote" >}})  
[Warning block quote]({{< relref "#warning-block-quote" >}})
{{% /see-also %}}

Page level info

This is some info that can contain markdown.

The markdown for this is:

{{% pageinfo %}}
This is some info that can contain **markdown**.
{{% /pageinfo %}}

TODO block Quote

Used to indicate areas of the documentation that are unfinished or incorrect.

The markdown for this is:

{{% todo %}}
This is a TODO that can contain `markdown`.
{{% /todo %}}

Cards

Cards can be used to display related content side by side. Each card can contain markdown and/or Hugo short codes. The cards will be displayed horizontally to fill the width of the page.

YAML

---
root:
  someKey: "value"

XML

<root>
  <child attr="xxx">some val</child>
</root>

The markdown for this is:

{{< cardpane >}}
  {{< card header="YAML" >}}
```yaml
---
root:
  someKey: "value"
```
  {{< /card >}}
  {{< card header="XML" >}}
```xml
<root>
  <child attr="xxx">some val</child>
</root>
```
  {{< /card >}}
{{< /cardpane >}}

Tabbed panes

Hugo/Docsy have shortcodes for tabbed panes however these mean only one tab will be printed or visible in the generated PDF so their use should be avoided.

5 - Images

Examples of how to include images in documents.

Image assets

All Images should be placed in /assets/images/ or within a descendent directory of it. Images should be added to the markdown using the image shortcode. This ensures a consistent look for all images and allows control of the size of the image.

The short code can be added in the following ways.

Markdown:

{{< image "style-guide/stroom-oo.svg" "200x" >}}

{{< image "style-guide/stroom-oo.png" >}}

{{< image "style-guide/stroom-oo.svg" "200x" >}}Image caption{{< /image >}}

All paths used in the image shortcode are relative to /assets/images.

The following shows an example of the directory structure.


/assets
   /images
      /section-x
         /sub-section-y
            /page1
               /image.svg
/content
   /en
      /docs
         /section-x
            /sub-section-y
               page1.md - #image shortcode used in here

Where images are only used by one page then the directory structure in /assets ought to mirror that of the page the images are used in, as shown above. If images are used by multiple pages then some other sensible organisation of the images should be used, e.g. /assets/images/section-x if they are limited to pages in one section, or /aaets/images/common if they are used in multiple sections.

Captions

The image can be displayed with a caption:

Example:

images/style-guide/svg-logo.svg

By W3C SVG Logo, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=105996438

Markdown:

{{< image "style-guide/svg-logo.svg" "200x" >}}
By W3C SVG Logo, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=105996438
{{< /image >}}

Size

The image can be defined with a maximum width (e.g. "300x") or a maximum height ("x200").

Example:

images/style-guide/svg-logo.svg

Markdown:

{{< image "style-guide/svg-logo.svg" "120x" />}}

.png files

.png files can be rendered in their original size by omitting the size argument.

Examples:

images/style-guide/stroom-amber.png

Or they can be rendered with a set size.

images/style-guide/stroom-amber.png

Markdown:

The markdown for the examples above is:

{{< image "style-guide/stroom-amber.png" />}}

Or they can be rendered with a set size.

{{< image "style-guide/stroom-amber.png" "50x"/>}}

Using global /assets/ resources

For images that are shared by multiple page bundles, e.g. stroom icons, place them in /assets/images/. The image path is relative to /assets/images/, e.g. file /assets/images/style-guide/svg-example.svg becomes style-guide/svg-example.svg.

Example:

images/style-guide/svg-example.svg

This is some optional caption text for the image. And this is another line.

Markdown:

{{< image "style-guide/svg-example.svg" "200x" >}}
This is some optional caption text for the image.
And this is another line.
{{< /image >}}

PlantUML

PlantUML is the favoured tool for producing diagrams such as UML diagrams, entity relationship diagrams and other more general architecture diagrams. The diagrams are written in plain text which makes them easy to version control. The plantUML syntax can then be converted into image files, e.g. .svg files.

A plantUML diagram looks like this in plain text form:

@startuml
Alice -> Bob: Authentication Request
Bob --> Alice: Authentication Response

Alice -> Bob: Another authentication Request
Alice <-- Bob: Another authentication Response
@enduml

PlantUML diagrams should be saved in a dedicated .puml file in the same folder as the page that will display it. If it is needed by multiple pages then it should be saved in /assets/images/.

The build process will convert all .puml files to a corresponding .puml.svg file. These generated .puml.svg files are ignored by git so need to be regenerated at build time or when you change a .puml file. The images can be generated by doing:

./container_build/runInPumlDocker.sh SVG

You should embed a PlantUML image like this, using the .puml.svg file (that may not yet exist, but will have to exist before the site is built):

Example:

images/style-guide/puml-example.puml.svg

Markdown:

{{< image "style-guide/puml-example.puml.svg" "300x" />}}

Using page resources

Images can be located in a page bundle . This is where the page is defined as a named directory (rather than a .md file) with an associated index.md file for the markdown contnet. All other items in the directory are page resources that can be used by the page, i.e. image files.

Use the image short code to display an image file that is located in the same directory as the page. For the short code to work the page must be a leaf bundle (index.md) or a branch bundle (_index.md), i.e:

/docs
   /MyPage
      index.md - #image shortcode used in here
      example.svg

or

/docs
   /MySection
      /Page1
         index.md
      /Page2
         index.md
      _index.md - #image shortcode used in here
      example.svg

In the above example, the shortcode would look like:

{{< image "example.svg" "200x" >}}
images/style-guide/stroom-oo.svg

Stroom user interface Components

Sometimes it is useful to display an image of certain user interface elements to explain something. Rather than use screenshots which are very difficult to keep up to date, you can instead use some simple shortcodes to display some UI elements, e.g. buttons, pipeline elements, etc. By using shortcodes, any change to the look of the Stroom UI means only the shortcode content and their styling need to change, without having to recreate tens or hundreds of screenshots.

Stroom icons

Stroom UI icons such as or can be added in line using the shortcode stroom-icon.

Arguments:

  • name - The filename (and relative path) of the icon file. The path is relative to /assets/images/stroom-ui/, e.g. documents/Feed.svg.
  • title (optional) - The hover tip title that will be given to the icon. If not supplied, the filename (minus extension) will be converted to sentence case and used as the title.
  • enabled (optional) [enabled|disabled] - Whether the button is enabled or disabled. Defaults to enabled.
  • colour (optional) - The colour variant to use for the icon. Not all icons support colour variants. If not supplied, and where the icon supports colour variants, then the default colour is blue. See below for the list of colour variants.

The full list of available icons can be found in the Icon Gallery.

Examples:

Simple use:

Custom hover tip name:

A document icon:

A pipeline icon:

Enabled vs disabled

An icon in its different colour states:

  • Default (no colour specified)
  • blue
  • brey
  • green
  • red

Markdown:

The markdown for the examples above is:

Simple use: {{< stroom-icon "save.svg" >}}

Custom hover tip name: {{< stroom-icon "key.svg" "Not a key" >}}

A document icon: {{< stroom-icon "document/Feed.svg" >}}

A pipeline icon: {{< stroom-icon "pipeline/text.svg" >}}

Enabled {{< stroom-icon "delete.svg" >}} vs disabled {{< stroom-icon "delete.svg" "Delete" "disabled" >}}

An icon in its different colour states:
* Default (no colour specified) {{< stroom-icon name="settings.svg" >}}
* `blue` {{< stroom-icon name="settings.svg" colour="blue" >}}
* `brey` {{< stroom-icon name="settings.svg" colour="grey" >}}
* `green` {{< stroom-icon name="settings.svg" colour="green" >}}
* `red` {{< stroom-icon name="settings.svg" colour="red" >}}

Buttons

To display a user interface button you can use the shortcode stroom-btn with the button title as its only argument.

Arguments:

  • title - The text to display on the button.
  • type - Optional. (primary|secondary).
    • primary results in a blue button.
    • secondary results in a red button.
    • Not Set results in a standard grey button.
  • filename - Optional. Filename of an icon to use next to the text, e.g. undo.svg.

Examples:

OK , Close , Cancel and Undo

And not in line

Save

Markdown:

The markdown for the examples above is:

{{< stroom-btn "Ok" >}}, {{< stroom-btn "Close" >}}, {{< stroom-btn "Cancel" >}} and {{< stroom-btn title="Undo" filename="undo.svg" >}}

And not in line

{{< stroom-btn "Save" >}}<br/>

Pipeline elements

To display a pipeline element (as seen on the Structure sub-tab on the Pipeline screen), like SplitFilter , you can use the shortcode pipe-elm.

Arguments:

  • element_name - The name of the pipeline element (case sensitive), e.g. XSLTFilter.
  • display_name (optional) - The display name for the pipeline element. If a display name is not provided then the element name will be used as the display name.

The list of available pipeline elements can be found in this gallery. An invalid element_name will result in an error when building the site.

The icon will be selected to match the element name provided. The element is a clickable link to the appropriate reference page for that element.

Examples:

This is an xsltFilter with its default name:

XSLTFilter

This is a splitFilter with a custom name:

My Split Filter

This is an IndexingFilter in line.

Markdown:

The markdown for the examples above is:

This is an xsltFilter with its default name:

{{< pipe-elm "XSLTFilter" >}}<br/>

This is a splitFilter with a custom name:

{{< pipe-elm "SplitFilter" "My Split Filter" >}}<br/>

This is an {{< pipe-elm "IndexingFilter" >}} in line.

Pipelines

To display a pipeline consisting of multiple pipeline elements (as seen on the Structure sub-tab on the Pipeline screen) you can use the short code pipe.

This shortcode takes no arguments. Instead, the inner content of the shortcode is populated with multiple pipe-elm shortcodes to describe each of the elements in the pipeline. This shortcode does not support any branching/forking in the pipeline.

Example:

Markdown:

The markdown for the two examples above is:

{{< pipe >}}
  {{< pipe-elm "Source" >}}
  {{< pipe-elm "XMLParser" >}}
  {{< pipe-elm "RecordCountFilter" "recordCount (read)" >}}
  {{< pipe-elm "SplitFilter" >}}
  {{< pipe-elm "IdEnrichmentFilter" >}}
  {{< pipe-elm "XSLTFilter" >}}
  {{< pipe-elm "SchemaFilter" >}}
  {{< pipe-elm "ElasticIndexingFilter" >}}
  {{< pipe-elm "RecordCountFilter" "recordCount (written)" >}}
{{< /pipe >}}

Each element is a clickable link to the appropriate reference page for that element. Pipelines cannot be used in-line in text.

For details on how to use pipe-elm see pipeline elements above. The list of available pipeline elements can be found in this gallery.

Stroom document tabs

To display a top level Stroom document tab, like Big Index , you can use the shortcode stroom-tab.

Arguments:

  • icon_filename - The filename of the icon to use (relative to assets/images/stroom-ui/document/) (case sensitive), e.g. Pipeline.svg.
  • title - The text to display in the tab, e.g. Indexing Pipeline.
  • state (optional) - Whether the tab is active or not (active or inactive). Defaults to inactive.

For a full list of all available icons see the Icon Gallery

Examples:

Simple: MY_FEED

Custom name: My Translation

Active/Inactive: My Translation My Translation

Unsaved: * My Translation

Markdown:

The markdown for these examples is:

Simple: {{< stroom-tab "Feed.svg" "MY_FEED" >}}
Custom name: {{< stroom-tab "XSLT.svg" "My Translation" >}}
Active/Inactive: {{< stroom-tab "XSLT.svg" "My Translation" "active" >}} {{< stroom-tab "XSLT.svg" "My Translation" >}}
Unsaved: {{< stroom-tab "XSLT.svg" "My Translation" "active" "unsaved" >}}

Stroom selected menu items

To display the selection of a menu item you can use the stroom-menu shortcode.

Arguments:

  • menu_item_names... - One argument per menu item name in the order root to leaf.

Examples:

For example to demonstrate creating a folder using the context menu:

New
Folder

The shortcode takes one argument per menu item so you can have multiple levels of menu.

Add
Folder
Feed

Markdown:

The markdown for these examples is:

For example to demonstrate creating a folder using the context menu:

{{< stroom-menu "New" "Folder" >}}

The shortcode takes one argument per menu item so you can have multiple levels of menu.

{{< stroom-menu "Add" "Folder" "Feed" >}}

It cannot be used in-line in text, it needs to be on its own line.

The list of available menu items with an icon can be found in this gallery. Menu item names are case-sensitive.

If the menu item name is not an exact match to one in the gallery then it will be displayed without an icon, e.g.:

New
Banana

Keyboard Shortcuts

To display a keyboard shortcut (AKA key binding) you can use the key-bind shortcode.

Arguments:

  • key_bind... - One or more key bindings, whit keys in the key binding delimited by ,, - or +. The name and case of non-alphabet keys will be normalised, e.g. del => Delete. The modifier keys ctrl, shift, alt, meta will be placed first and displayed in a consistent order.

Each argument is one of more keys that are pressed at the same time, e.g. "ctrl,c" for Ctrl ^ + c . Chord key bindings where multiple key binds are pressed and released in sequence have one argument for each step in the chord, e.g. pressing g then p has arguments "g" and "p", producing g , p .

Examples:

This is a key binding with modifiers Ctrl ^ + Shift ⇧ + f and this is chord type key binding g , p .

If the key is a , then use + or - as the delimiter, e.g. Ctrl ^ + Alt + , , Ctrl ^ + + or Alt + - .

Markdown:

The markdown for these examples is:

This is a key binding with modifiers {{< key-bind "ctrl,shift,f" >}}  and this is chord type key binding {{< key-bind "g" "p" >}}.

If the key is a `,` then use `+` or `-` as the delimiter, e.g. {{< key-bind "ctrl+alt+," >}}, {{< key-bind "ctrl,+" >}} or {{< key-bind "alt+-" >}}.

6 - Icon Gallery

A gallery of all the icons in use in stroom for reference.

This page can be used as a reference for finding icons and their filenames to use them in the documentation.

See here for how to add icons to pages.

General icons

General icons used in Stroom.

Example: {{< stroom-icon "edit.svg" >}}

Pipeline element icons

Icons used for the different pipeline elements.

Base path: pipeline
Example: {{< stroom-icon "pipeline/stream.svg" >}}

Document type icons

Icons used for the different document entity types, i.e. those seen in the explorer tree.

Base path: document
Example: {{< stroom-icon "document/Index.svg" >}}

Table column icons

Icons used on the Dashboard and Query table columns.

Base path: fields.

Menu items with icons that are available for use with the stroom-menu shortcode.

API Keys
Add
Add Tags
Add to Favourites
Analytic Rule
AnnotationWriter
Application Permissions
BOMRemovalFilterInput
BadTextXMLFilterReader
Caches
Change password
Close
Close All
CombinedParser
Copy
Copy Link to Clipboard
DSParser
Dashboard
Data Retention
Data Volumes
Database Tables
Delete
Dependants
Dependencies
Dictionary
DynamicIndexingFilter
DynamicSearchResultOutputFilter
Edit Tags
Elastic Cluster
Elastic Index
ElasticIndexingFilter
Export
Feed
FileAppender
Find
Find In Content
FindReplaceFilter
Folder
Hadoop logoimage/svg+xmlHadoop logo
HDFSFileAppender
HTTPAppender
Help
HttpPostFilter
image/svg+xml
IdEnrichmentFilter
Import
Index Volumes
IndexingFilter
Info
InvalidCharFilterReader
InvalidXMLCharFilterReader
JSONParser
JSONWriter
Jobs
Kafka Configuration
Logout
Lucene Index
Move
New
Nodes
Permissions
Pipeline
Preferences
Properties
Reader
Recent Items
RecordCountFilter
RecordOutputFilter
ReferenceDataFilter
Remove
Remove Tags
Remove from Favourites
Rename
Restore
RollingFileAppender
RollingStreamAppender
SafeXMLFilter
Save
Save All
SchemaFilter
Script
SearchResultOutputFilter
Server Tasks
Solr Index
SolrIndexingFilter
Source
SplitFilter
StandardKafkaProducer
Statistic Store
StatisticsFilter
StreamAppender
Stroom-Stats Store
StroomStatsAppender
StroomStatsFilter
Text Converter
TextWriter
User Permissions
Users
Visualisation
XML Schema
XMLFragmentParser
XMLParser
XMLWriter
image/svg+xml
XPathExtractionOutputFilter
XSL Translation
XSLTFilter

Pipeline elements

Pipeline elements that are available for use with the pipe-elm and pipe shortcodes.

Icons

This gallery of icons can be updated by running the following script which will copy all the icons from the stroom repository. You should ensure your local stroom repository is up to date and on the correct branch before running this.

./update_stroom_icons.sh <stroom repo root>

e.g.

./update_stroom_icons.sh ../v7stroom/

To update the available menu items edit the shortcode file layouts/shortcodes/stroom-menu.html and modify the icon_map variable.

Pipeline elements

To update the available pipeline elements edit the shortcode file layouts/shortcodes/pipe-elm.html and modify the element_map variable.