Angular documentation project (https://angular.io)

Everything in this folder is part of the documentation project. This includes:

• the web site for displaying the documentation.
• the dgeni configuration for converting source files to rendered files that can be viewed in the web site.
• the tooling for setting up examples for development; and generating live-example and zip files from the examples.

Developer tasks

We use Yarn to manage the dependencies and development tasks. Behind the scenes, Bazel is used to build targets and run tests. You should run all these tasks from the angular/aio folder. Here are the most important tasks you might need to use:

• yarn - install all the dependencies.

• yarn build - create a development build of the application.

• yarn build-prod - create a production build of the application.

• yarn build-local - same as build, but uses locally built Angular packages from source code rather than from npm.

• yarn start - run a development web server that watches, rebuilds, and reloads the page when there are changes to the source code or docs.

• yarn start-local - same as start, but uses local Angular packages.

• yarn test - run all the unit tests for the doc-viewer once.

• yarn test-local - similar to test, but tests against locally built Angular packages.

• yarn test-and-watch - watch all the source files for the doc-viewer, and run all the unit tests when any change.

• yarn e2e - run all the e2e tests for the doc-viewer.

• yarn e2e-local - similar to e2e, but tests against locally built Angular packages.

• yarn lint - check that the doc-viewer code follows our style rules.

• yarn docs-watch - similar to start, but only watches for docs changes and uses a faster, low-fidelity build ideal for quick editing.

• yarn docs-test - run the unit tests for the doc generation code.

• yarn docs-lint - check that the doc gen code follows our style rules.

• yarn create-example - create a new example directory containing initial source files.

• yarn example-playground <exampleName> - set up a playground to manually test an example combined with its boilerplate files

  • --local - link locally build Angular packages as deps
  • --watch - update the playground when sources change

• yarn example-e2e - run all e2e tests for examples. Available options:

  • --local: run e2e tests against locally built Angular packages.
  • --filter=foo: limit e2e tests to those containing the word "foo".
  • --exclude=bar: exclude e2e tests containing the word "bar".

Note for Windows users

The underlying Bazel build requires creating symbolic links (see here for details). On Windows, this requires to either have Developer Mode enabled (supported on Windows 10 or newer) or run the setup commands as administrator.

Using ServiceWorker locally

Running yarn start (even when explicitly targeting production mode) does not set up the ServiceWorker. If you want to test the ServiceWorker locally, you can use yarn build and then serve the files with yarn http-server ../dist/bin/aio/build -p 4200.

Guide to authoring

There are two types of content in the documentation:

• API docs: descriptions of all that make up the Angular platform, such as the modules, classes, interfaces or decorators. API docs are generated directly from the source code. The source code is contained in TypeScript files, located in the angular/packages folder. Each API item may have a preceding comment, which contains JSDoc style tags and content. The content is written in markdown. To generate docs, each package's files need to be explicitly included in the packages/BUILD.bazel file under the files_for_docgen target.

• Other content: guides, tutorials, and other marketing material. All other content is written using markdown in text files, located in the angular/aio/content folder. More specifically, there are sub-folders that contain particular types of content: guides, tutorial and marketing.

• Code examples: code examples need to be testable to ensure their accuracy. Also, our examples have a specific look and feel and allow the user to copy the source code. For larger examples they are rendered in a tabbed interface (e.g. template, HTML, and TypeScript on separate tabs). Additionally, some are live examples, which provide links where the code can be edited, executed, and/or downloaded. For details on working with code examples, please read the Code snippets, Source code markup, and Live examples pages of the Authors Style Guide.

We use the dgeni tool to convert these files into docs that can be viewed in the doc-viewer.

The Authors Style Guide prescribes guidelines for writing guide pages, explains how to use the documentation classes and components, and how to markup sample source code to produce code snippets.

Generating the complete docs

Running the yarn build or yarn start tasks will automatically generate the docs. This will process all the source files (API and other), extracting the documentation and generating JSON files that can be consumed by the doc-viewer.

Partial doc generation for editors

Full doc generation can take up to one minute. That's too slow for efficient document creation and editing.

You can make small changes in a smart editor that displays formatted markdown:

In VS Code, Cmd-K, V opens markdown preview in side pane; Cmd-B toggles left sidebar

You also want to see those changes displayed properly in the doc viewer with a quick, edit/view cycle time.

For this purpose, use the yarn docs-watch task, which watches for changes to source files and only re-processes the files necessary to generate the docs that are related to the file that has changed. Since this task takes shortcuts, it is much faster (often less than 1 second) but it won't produce full fidelity content. For example, links to other docs and code examples may not render correctly. This is most particularly noticed in links to other docs and in the embedded examples, which may not always render correctly.

The general setup is as follows:

• Open a terminal, ensure the dependencies are installed, then start the doc-viewer:

yarn docs-watch

• A browser will open automatically at https://localhost:4200/. Navigate to the document on which you want to work.

• Make changes to the page's associated doc or example files. Every time a file is saved, the doc will be regenerated, the app will rebuild and the page will reload.

• If you get a build error complaining about examples or any other odd behavior, be sure to consult the Authors Style Guide.