.. _intro-whatsnext:

=================
What to read next
=================

So you've read all the :ref:`introductory material <intro-index>` and have
decided you'd like to keep using Django. We've only just scratched the surface
with this intro (in fact, if you've read every single word you've still read
less than 10% of the overall documentation).

So what's next?

Well, we've always been big fans of learning by doing. At this point you should
know enough to start a project of your own and start fooling around. As you need
to learn new tricks, come back to the documentation.

We've put a lot of effort into making Django's documentation useful, easy to
read and as complete as possible. The rest of this document explains more about
how the documentation works so that you can get the most out of it.

(Yes, this is documentation about documentation. Rest assured we have no plans
to write a document about how to read the document about documentation.)

Finding documentation
=====================

Django's got a *lot* of documentation -- almost 200,000 words -- so finding what
you need can sometimes be tricky. A few good places to start the :ref:`search`
and the :ref:`genindex`.

Or you can just browse around!

How the documentation is organized
==================================

Django's main documentation is broken up into "chunks" designed to fill
different needs:

    * The :ref:`introductory material <intro-index>` is designed for people new
      to Django -- or to web development in general. It doesn't cover anything
      in depth, but instead gives a high-level overview of how developing in
      Django "feels".
      
    * The :ref:`topic guides <topics-index>`, on the other hand, dive deep into
      individual parts of Django. There are complete guides to Django's
      :ref:`model system <topics-db-index>`, :ref:`template engine
      <topics-templates>`, :ref:`forms framework <topics-forms-index>`, and much
      more.
      
      This is probably where you'll want to spent most of your time; if you work
      your way through these guides you should come out knowing pretty much
      everything there is to know about Django.

    * Web development is often broad, not deep -- problems span many domains.
      We've written a set of :ref:`how-to guides <howto-index>` that answer
      common "How do I ...?" questions. Here you'll find information about
      :ref:`generating PDFs with Django <howto-outputting-pdf>`, :ref:`writing
      custom template tags <howto-custom-template-tags>`, and more.

      Answers to really common questions can also be found in the :ref:`FAQ
      <faq-index>`.

    * The guides and how-to's don't cover every single class, function, and
      method available in Django -- that would be overwhelming when you're
      trying to learn. Instead, details about individual classes, functions,
      methods, and modules are kept in the :ref:`reference <ref-index>`. This is
      where you'll turn to find the details of a particular function or
      whathaveyou.
    
    * Finally, there's some "specialized" documentation not usually relevant to
      most developers. This includes the :ref:`release notes <releases-index>`,
      :ref:`documentation of obsolete features <obsolete-index>`,
      :ref:`internals documentation <internals-index>` for those who want to add
      code to Django itself, and a :ref:`few other things that simply don't fit
      elsewhere <misc-index>`.
      

How documentation is updated
============================

Just as the Django code base is developed and improved on a daily basis, our
documentation is consistently improving. We improve documentation for several
reasons:

    * To make content fixes, such as grammar/typo corrections.

    * To add information and/or examples to existing sections that need to be
      expanded.

    * To document Django features that aren't yet documented. (The list of
      such features is shrinking but exists nonetheless.)

    * To add documentation for new features as new features get added, or as
      Django APIs or behaviors change.

Django's documentation is kept in the same source control system as its code. It
lives in the `django/trunk/docs`_ directory of our Subversion repository. Each
document online is a separate text file in the repository.

.. _django/trunk/docs: http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/docs

Where to get it
===============

You can read Django documentation in several ways. They are, in order of
preference:

On the Web
----------

The most recent version of the Django documentation lives at
http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/. These HTML pages are generated
automatically from the text files in source control. That means they reflect the
"latest and greatest" in Django -- they include the very latest corrections and
additions, and they discuss the latest Django features, which may only be
available to users of the Django development version. (See "Differences between
versions" below.)

We encourage you to help improve the docs by submitting changes, corrections and
suggestions in the `ticket system`_. The Django developers actively monitor the
ticket system and use your feedback to improve the documentation for everybody.

Note, however, that tickets should explicitly relate to the documentation,
rather than asking broad tech-support questions. If you need help with your
particular Django setup, try the `django-users mailing list`_ or the `#django
IRC channel`_ instead.

.. _ticket system: http://code.djangoproject.com/simpleticket?component=Documentation
.. _django-users mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/django-users
.. _#django IRC channel: irc://irc.freenode.net/django

In plain text
-------------

For offline reading, or just for convenience, you can read the Django
documentation in plain text.

If you're using an official release of Django, note that the zipped package
(tarball) of the code includes a ``docs/`` directory, which contains all the
documentation for that release.

If you're using the development version of Django (aka the Subversion "trunk"),
note that the ``docs/`` directory contains all of the documentation. You can
``svn update`` it, just as you ``svn update`` the Python code, in order to get
the latest changes.

You can check out the latest Django documentation from Subversion using this
shell command:

.. code-block:: bash

    $ svn co http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/docs/ django_docs

One low-tech way of taking advantage of the text documentation is by using the
Unix ``grep`` utility to search for a phrase in all of the documentation. For
example, this will show you each mention of the phrase "max_length" in any
Django document:

.. code-block:: bash

    $ grep -r max_length /path/to/django/docs/
    
As HTML, locally
----------------

You can get a local copy of the HTML documentation following a few easy steps:

    * Django's documentation uses a system called Sphinx__ to convert from
      plain text to HTML. You'll need to install Sphinx by either downloading
      and installing the package from the Sphinx website, or by Python's
      ``easy_install``:
      
      .. code-block:: bash
        
            $ easy_install Sphinx
    
    * Then, just use the included ``Makefile`` to turn the documentation into
      HTML:
      
      .. code-block:: bash
      
            $ cd path/to/django/docs
            $ make html
    
      You'll need `GNU Make`__ installed for this.
      
    * The HTML documentation will be placed in ``docs/_build/html``.
    
.. warning::

    At the time of this writing, Django's using a version of Sphinx not
    yet released, so you'll currently need to install Sphinx from the
    source. We'll fix this shortly.
    
__ http://sphinx.pocoo.org/
__ http://www.gnu.org/software/make/

Differences between versions
============================

As previously mentioned, the text documentation in our Subversion repository
contains the "latest and greatest" changes and additions. These changes often
include documentation of new features added in the Django development version
-- the Subversion ("trunk") version of Django. For that reason, it's worth
pointing out our policy on keeping straight the documentation for various
versions of the framework.

We follow this policy:

    * The primary documentation on djangoproject.com is an HTML version of the
      latest docs in Subversion. These docs always correspond to the latest
      official Django release, plus whatever features we've added/changed in
      the framework *since* the latest release.

    * As we add features to Django's development version, we try to update the
      documentation in the same Subversion commit transaction.

    * To distinguish feature changes/additions in the docs, we use the phrase:
      "New in version X.Y", being X.Y the next release version (hence, the one
      being developed).

    * Documentation for a particular Django release is frozen once the version
      has been released officially. It remains a snapshot of the docs as of the
      moment of the release. We will make exceptions to this rule in
      the case of retroactive security updates or other such retroactive
      changes. Once documentation is frozen, we add a note to the top of each
      frozen document that says "These docs are frozen for Django version XXX"
      and links to the current version of that document.

    * The `main documentation Web page`_ includes links to documentation for
      all previous versions.

.. _main documentation Web page: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/
