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lisp/org/doc/Documentation_Standards.org

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+#+TITLE:    Notes on documenting Org
+#+AUTHOR:   Phil Rooke
+#+EMAIL:    phil@yax.org.uk
+#+LANGUAGE: en
+#+STARTUP:  showall
+#+TEXT:     Notes to myself justifying the conventions and standards in my
+#+TEXT:     set of recent doc patches.
+#+OPTIONS:  H:3 num:t toc:t \n:nil @:t ::t |:t ^:nil *:t TeX:t
+
+* Background
+
+I think it is an express objective of Carsten's that Org should be
+readily accessible to all users of Emacs and not just those who might
+happen to read or hack on the code of this particular package.  To
+that end significant effort has been made and continues to be made by
+the Org community to ensure that high quality, user focused,
+documentation is readily available to everyone.
+
+Org itself contains a comprehensive guide to using all aspects of the
+system, how to extend it yourself, and highlights some of the many
+burgeoning number of add-on packages that others are contributing.
+This guide, [[info:org:Top][The Org Manual]], concentrates on the facts of working with
+the system. Supplementing this, the [[Org web pages]] contain pointers to
+many tutorials and how-to's which capture much of spirit and
+imagination people show when using Org as a basis for building broader
+organizational systems that help them help themselves.
+
+I use Org, but it is a big system, and so I happen to think that
+improving the consistency, clarity and accuracy of Org documents helps
+both me and all other users of the system.  In support of this and by
+way of justification and clarification, this short note attempts to
+capture some of the existing guidelines and standards that have been
+used in the patches I am submitting and, which I hope, may be adopted
+by others when making their own contributions.
+
+* Referencing systems, packages, modes and much else
+ 
+Originally Org was a single mode and there was no ambiguity about what
+Org mode could refer to.  Things have changed rapidly though and it
+seems that Carsten now thinks of Org as the system encompassing the
+major mode, some minor modes, and an increasing number of additional
+packages and plug-ins that build on the core Org functionality.  It is
+really hard to find a consistent way to refer to all these things, but
+what I am trying to do is follow these guidelines (which are not
+perfect, merely a start):
+
+- In general write "Org" as much as possible and, in particular, when
+  discussing concepts, features and functions that are generally
+  applicable to Org as a whole.
+
+- Be more specific and write, for example, "the Orgtbl minor mode"
+  when referring to something unique to that feature.  It may be, for
+  example, a command is only available when you are actually editing a
+  file using just that mode, add-on package or plug-in.
+
+- Prefer "Org mode" to "Org-mode" or "org-mode".  This is simply
+  because it reflects an existing convention in [[info:emacs:Top][The Emacs Manual]] which
+  consistently documents mode names in this form - "Text mode",
+  "Outline mode", "Mail mode", etc.
+
+- Likewise refer, if at all possible, to "Org file or "Org buffer"
+  meaning with, great generality, any file or buffer which requires
+  use of some part of Org to edit it properly.
+
+- Org uses "org-..." to ring fence a name space for itself in the
+  Emacs code base.  This is obviously retained in code snippets.
+
+* Other Org specific conventions
+
+Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, then try and adopt the
+following conventions.  (I think all can be justified by reference to
+Carsten or precedent in other significant Emacs documentation, unless
+I have made them up of course).
+
+- Org has *lots* of commands and a /lot/ of them take prefix arguments of
+  one sort or another.  Write in full "prefix argument", "numeric
+  prefix argument" or, maybe, "a numeric prefix argument N" when you
+  want to refer to the argument again.
+
+- Org lives in various states of harmony and discord with other Emacs
+  packages.  Try and write the names of those packages as their
+  authors and maintainers write them.  So it should be (I think) BBDB,
+  MH-E, Rmail, VM, Gnus, CDLaTeX etc.
+
+- TODO keywords, whether Org or user defined, are written in capitals.
+
+- Built-in tags with a special meaning (e.g. ARCHIVE) are written in
+  uppercase.  User defined tags (e.g. boss, home) are written in
+  lowercase.
+
+- Built-in properties (e.g. PRIORITY) are written in uppercase.  User
+  defined properties (e.g. Release) are written in lowercase.
+
+- Entries in the concept index are normally all lower case unless some
+  other rule dictates otherwise.
+
+* org-manual.org specific conventions
+
+Org git repository comes with an .org version of the manual in the
+=doc/= directory.  Here are indications that are specific to this
+version of the manual.
+
+- Five of the standard Texinfo indexes are used in the Org manual:
+
+  + #+cindex: :: concept index, for general concepts
+  + #+findex: :: function index, for function and function-like names
+  + #+kindex: :: keystroke index, for keyboard commands
+  + #+pindex: :: program index, for names of programs
+  + #+vindex: :: variable index, for variable names
+
+- Use fixed-width area for one-line examples.
+
+- Use example blocks for Org syntax instead of "begin_src org".
+
+- Internal links to headlines always start with a star.
+
+- Tags, node properties, are not shown with the surrounding colons.
+
+- When to use = ... = or ~ ... ~ markup:
+
+  + files or extensions use = ... =,
+  + anything that is meant to be written in the Org buffer uses = ... =,
+  + any meaningful token in a programming language uses ~ ... ~.
+
+* Miscellaneous
+
+ - Only two of the standard Texinfo indexes are used; those for
+   concepts and keys.  This has some implications:
+
+   + The preference is to document commands by key rather than by name
+
+   + Texinfo commands such as @var and @defoption are not used.  The
+     preference for this type of thing is that the user browses the
+     customize groups.  If you want or need to refer to, say, a
+     variable then document it as "the variable
+     @code{org-startup-folded}"
+ 
+   + Entries in the concept index are normally all lower case unless
+     some other rule dictates otherwise.
+
+ - Org documentation is written in American English, which is somewhat
+   foreign as far as I am concerned, but live with it anyway.
+
+ - Org uses a number of compound words, words that I wouldn't
+   necessarily run together.  Instead of worrying about whether these
+   should be separate, hyphenated or compound I have simply gone with
+   the majority case as originally written and then tried to make sure
+   the spell checker knows what this chosen standard should be so that
+   I do not worry about it anymore.
+
+ - I have run a spell checker periodically. Aspell works well and has
+   a useful Texinfo filter (although, annoyingly, I cannot make this
+   work with ispell.el and so I run it from the command line).  I have
+   an Org specific Aspell configuration file (which sets an American
+   dictionary, rules for compound words etc) and which, along with the
+   associated word and replacement files, captures some of the more
+   detailed and somewhat arbitrary rules I have used.
+
+ - Org has really low entry barriers.  Requirements seem simply to be:
+
+   + You can use Text mode or, pretty much, any derivative of it
+   + You have some motivation to become slightly better organized.
+
+   Therefore, try and write the documentation so that it is relevant
+   to, and can be read by such a diverse audience.
+
+# Local variables:
+# mode: org
+# ispell-local-dictionary: "en_US-w_accents"
+# ispell-local-pdict: "./.aspell.org.pws"
+# End: