SoK/2021/StatusReport/Claudio Cambra
Improving technical documentation
Kirigami is one of KDE's most important frameworks. It is used by KDE developers to produce attractive applications that work across desktop and mobile environments and across many operating systems.
However, the Kirigami developer documentation on the KDE Develop site was scarce in content. This made it difficult for newcomers to fully uncover Kirigami's capabilities. A significant part of my Season of KDE work has been devoted to addressing this, working towards the goal of making the Kirigami documentation detailed, complete, and beginner-friendly. We are now much closer to this goal than we were in January.
Working on this project has also helped me learn a lot about Kirigami too. One of my personal projects, DayKountdown, has gone from being a blank window to being a (relatively!) usable, convergent application. DayKountdown now forms part of the Plasma Mobile namespace on KDE Invent and the aim is for it to eventually become a showcase of Kirigami's capabilities. Right now, it just counts down the days towards a date (with a few neat extra pieces of functionality).
Throughout Season of KDE, I have improved several additional areas of the KDE Developer documentation. I have also assisted other community members in the writing and drafting of new documentation.
Links
- Upstream repository for develop.kde.org
- Downstream working repository for develop.kde.org
- Repository for DayKountdown
Timeline
January 2021
- MR1: Fixing exemplar code in KDE Frameworks 'Getting Started' section
- MR2: Fixing develop.kde.org repository README instructions
- MR3: Larger fixes to KDE Frameworks 'Getting Started' section
- MR4: Uploading a missing screenshot from 'Getting Started' section (oops)
- MR5: Upload new screenshots for develop.kde.org to address open issue over low-resolution screenshots
January involved a lot of getting used to Invent. Working on small bits of the documentation was a good way to learn about merge requests, forks, suggestions and so on, as I'd only used git's clone, pull, and push before.
I started by fixing the things that were most obviously broken yet also not a massive undertaking. The old KDE Frameworks tutorials had several issues in them and seemed like an obvious first problem to tackle.
These were some of the smaller MRs I made during SoK, they were bound to be helpful for newcomers who tried their hand at the KF 'Getting Started' section and would end up not being able to compile the examples.
February 2021
March 2021
- MR8 (Still open): Fixes to new Kirigami tutorials and existing pages
- MR9: Fixes and touchups to KConfig KCM page
- MR10: Created new page with information for beginners to Kirigami