---
uid: contributing/documentation
---
Documentation & Website
===============

---------------

_Details about this website and the API documentation site and how to help contribute to them_

## Overview

The website and the api documentation source code is found in the same Git repository as the Lucene.Net code in the folder: `/websites/`. The website and documentation site is built with a static site generator called [DocFx](https://dotnet.github.io/docfx/) and all of the content/pages are created using Markdown files.

To submit changes for the website, create a Pull Request to the [Lucene Git repositoriy](https://github.com/apache/lucenenet). (See [Contributing](xref:contributing#submit-a-pull-request) for details)

## Website

### Build script

To build the website and run it on your machine, run the powershell script: `/websites/site/site.ps1`. You don't have to pass any parameters in and it will build the site and host it at [http://localhost:8080](http://localhost:8080). 

The script has 2 optional parameters:

* `-ServeDocs` _(default is 1)_ The value of `1` means it will build the docs and host the site, if `0` is specified, it will build the static site to be hosted elsewhere.
* `-Clean` _(default is 0)_ The value of `1` means that it will clear all caches and tool files before it builds again. This is handy if a new version of docfx is available or if there's odd things occuring with the incremental build.

### File/folder structure

The file/folder structure is within `/websites/site`:

* `site.ps1` - the build script
* `docfx.json` - the DocFx configuration file _(see docfx manual for further info)_
* `lucenetemplate/*` - the custom template files to style the website
* `*.md` - the root site content such as the index and download pages
* `toc.yml` - these files determine the menu structures _(see docfx manual for further info)_
* `contributing/*` - the Contributing section
* `tools/*` - during the build process some tools will be downloaded which are stored here
* `_site` - this is the exported static site that is generated

### Deploy the website

* The website is deployed via git
* Checkout the Git repo that hosts the documentation: https://github.com/apache/lucenenet-site/tree/asf-site _(ensure you have `asf-site` branch checked out, not `master`)_
* Copy the build output of the website to the root. The build output will be all of the files in the `/websites/site/_site` in your main lucene.net checked out Git repository. 
* Commit and push these changes
* The new version of the website will be live. If the amount of new files committed is large, the new files may take some time to become live. 

## API Docs

### Build script

To build the api docs and run it on your machine, run the powershell script: `/websites/apidocs/docs.ps1`. You don't have to pass any parameters in and it will build the site and host it at [http://localhost:8080](http://localhost:8080). 

The script has 3 parameters:

* `-LuceneNetVersion` _(mandatory)_ This is the Lucene.Net version including pre-release information that is being built. For example: `4.8.0-beta00008`. _(This value will correspond to the folder and branch name where the docs get hosted, see below)_
* `-ServeDocs` _(default is 1)_ The value of `1` means it will build the docs and host the site, if `0` is specified, it will build the static site to be hosted elsewhere.
* `-Clean` _(default is 0)_ The value of `1` means that it will clear all caches and tool files before it builds again. This is handy if a new version of docfx is available or if there's odd things occuring with the incremental build.

### File/folder structure

The file/folder structure is within `/websites/apidocs`:

* `docs.ps1` - the build script
* `docfx.json` - the DocFx configuration file _(see docfx manual for further info)_
* `lucenetemplate/*` - the custom template files to style the website
* `*.md` - the root site content such as the index and download pages
* `toc.yml` - these files determine the menu structures _(see docfx manual for further info)_
* `tools/*` - during the build process some tools will be downloaded which are stored here
* `_site` - this is the exported static site that is generated

### Process overview

The documentation generation is a complex process because it needs to convert the Java Lucene project's documentation into a usable format to produce the output Lucene.Net's documentation. 

The process overview is:

* Use the `JavaDocToMarkdownConverter` project within the `DocumentationTools.sln` solution to run the conversion of the Java Lucene projects docs into a useable format for DocFx. This tool takes uses a release tag output of the Java Lucene project as it's source to convert against the Lucene.Net's source. 
* Run the documentation build script to produce the documentation site
* Publish the output to the [`lucenenet-site`](https://github.com/apache/lucenenet-site) repository into a correpsonding named version directory

We don't want to manually change the converted resulting markdown files (`.md`) because they would get overwritten again when the conversion process is re-executed. Therefor to fix any formatting issues or customized output of the project docs, these customizations/fixes/tweaks are built directly in to the conversion process itself in the `JavaDocToMarkdownConverter.csproj` project.

### Building the docs

* Checkout the Lucene.Net release tag to build the docs against
* Execute the `./src/docs/convert.ps1` script and enter the current Lucene version to convert from. 
  * For example, for Lucene.Net 4.8.0 we are converting from the Java Lucene build release of ["4.8.1"](https://github.com/apache/lucene-solr/releases/tag/releases%2Flucene-solr%2F4.8.1) so in this case enter: 4.8.1 at the prompt or call the whole script like `./src/docs/convert.ps1 -JavaLuceneVersion 4.8.1`
  * This script will download and extract the Java Lucene release files, build the `DocumentationTools.sln` solution and execute the `JavaDocToMarkdownConverter.exe`
* Review and commit the files changed
  * Many times there will just be whitespace changes in the files especially if this process has been executed before for the same source/destination version.
  * If this is a new source/destination version there will be a **lot** of file changes, at least one file per folder.
  * If there are formatting issues or irregularities in the converted output then these will need to be addressed by making changes to the conversion tool itself `JavaDocToMarkdownConverter.csproj` (generally only needed for new major version releases)
* Execute the `./websites/apidocs/docs.ps1` script to build and serve the api docs website locally for testing.
  * Example: `./websites/apidocs/docs.ps1 -LuceneNetVersion 4.8.0-beta00008`
  * will serve a website on [http://localhost:8080](http://localhost:8080)
  * It will take quite a while (approx 10 minutes) to build
  

### Publishing the docs

* Checkout the Git repo that hosts the documentation: https://github.com/apache/lucenenet-site/tree/asf-site _(ensure you have `asf-site` branch checked out, not `master`)_
* Create a new folder in this repo: `/docs/[Version]`, for example: `/docs/4.8.0-beta00008`
* Copy the build output of the documentation site to this new folder. The build output will be all of the files in the `/websites/apidocs/_site` in your main lucene.net checked out Git repository. 
* Commit and push these changes
* The new version documentation will be live. Due to the amount of new files committed, the new files may take up to 60 minutes to become live. 
* Next the website needs updating which is a manual process currently:
  * In the `/websites/site/download` folder there should be a document per release. It's normally fine to copy the document of the latest release for the same major version. For a new major version some modifications may be needed. 
  * Ensure the correct version number is listed in the header and the nuget download snippet.
  * Update the `Status` and `Released` heading information. 
  * Ensure the download links are correct.
  * Update the `/websites/site/download/toc.yml` and `/websites/site/download/download.md` files to include a reference to the new page which should maintain descending version order.
  * Update the `/websites/site/docs.md` file and add a link to the new documentation for the current version which should maintain descending version order.
  * [Build the website](#website) and test locally, then deploy the changes
* Once the website is committed/pushed, the last step is to create a named branch on the main [`lucenenet`](https://github.com/apache/lucenenet) repository with the name: `docs/[Version]`, for example `docs/4.8.0-beta00008` based on commit of the latest (if any) changes made to the docs in the `lucenenet` repository on the main branch. This branch is used for linking to on the API docs "Improve this Doc" button.  
  
