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Suite Documentation

The suite template carries the configuration files needed to easily launch a documentation web site for your new tools suite using a permanent, customized fork of the open source Jekyll theme Just the Docs, called just-the-docs-mdi.

Configure your suite’s basic information

Open and edit the following files, following the instructions in the comments to find specific lines you need to edit to match your needs:

  • _config.yml
  • overview.md
  • LICENSE (adjust the license type, year, and licensee as needed)
  • aws-mdi.md (specify the resources needed for a public server, if relevant)
  • README.md (delete these developer instructions, if desired)

Activate your documentation web page on github.io

Activate your new documentation site for loading via github.io as follows:

  • navigate to your new repository on GitHub
  • click “Settings”
  • click the “Pages” tab on the left
  • edit the “Source” to be branch ‘main’ and folder ‘/root’
  • click ‘Save’

After about a minute, your site will be live at the link indicated on Settings / Pages. It will track your repository to keep your site up to date whenever you push or merge changes into the ‘main’ branch.

Please note that this only works if your repository is public.

Write your documentation files

Finally, create documentation page files within any folder. The easy way is to create markdown files similar to the overview.md file you edited above. By placing these as README.md files into the appropriate folders in your file tree, users will be able to see them both on GitHub and in your documentation web site.

Just the Docs usage

Please see the Just the Docs documentation for guidance on how to use the Jekyll front matter at the top of each markdown file to create the nested menu items typical of MDI documentation sites. Examples here will get you going:

https://github.com/MiDataInt/mdi-documentation-template/tree/main/_docs