Documentation Wiki Spaces Overview

Starting with 1.7.x, each major version of DSpace has its own Wiki Space.

Copying Existing Docs to a New Space

In order to prepare for the next release, you obviously need to begin Unreleased Documentation early. The easiest way to do this is to generate a new Documentation Space for that unreleased version, and copy the latest Documentation over to that space. Luckily, the "Copy Partial Space" plugin for Confluence makes this relatively easy to do.

Here's the steps:

  1. First, you need to login as an Administrative user and visit the homepage of the latest Documentation (e.g. DSDOC17)
  2. Under the "Tools" side-menu, select the "Copy into New Space" option (should be at the bottom)
  3. Select a new Space Name and Space Key (ID) for this brand new space. Make sure to follow our recommended Space ID naming conventions as described above.
  4. Once the new Space has been generated, visit the new Space. You'll need to change the main page name to match the new version number (e.g. "DSpace 3.x Documentation").
  5. Next you'll need to tweak several Space settings to get it formatted similar to the rest of our Documentation. We'll start simple by tweaking the "Space Description"
  6. Now, change the "Documentation Space Header" so that we have the "Unreleased Documentation Header" in place. The full instructions can be found below in the #Documentation Space Headers section.
  7. Now, change the Left Sidebar to load up the _DocLeftSidebar shared content (this displays the DSpace logo and list of recent versions). The full instructions can be found below in the #Documentation Shared Sidebar section.
  8. Modify the All Documentation wiki page to list this version of the Documentation, and make sure to note that it is UNRELEASED.
  9. Let's check/update the Space permissions / access rights
  10. Finally, to ensure everything was copied properly (and no links were "broken" in the process), you may want to look at these reports:

Documentation Space Headers

As mentioned above, on each Documentation Space we want to provide users with context information to let them know whether the Documentation they are looking at is current, and also give them information on how to get to current or older documentation (based on the version of DSpace they are using).

Editing Headers:

There are three types of headers we use on Documentation spaces.

Current Documentation Header

This header is used to notify users that the Documentation Space they are visiting is for the current version of DSpace:

What it looks like:

This documentation covers the latest release of DSpace, version 1.8.0. Looking for another version? See all documentation.

Wiki Source:

{tip:title=Current Release}
This documentation covers the latest release of DSpace, version 1.8.0. Looking for another version? [See all documentation|DSDOC:All Documentation].
{tip}

Old Documentation Header

This header is used to notify users that they are looking at an old version of the Documentation.

What it looks like:

This documentation relates to an old version of DSpace. (if it exists). Looking for another version? See all documentation.

Wiki Source:

{note:title=Old Release}
This documentation relates to an old version of DSpace. {spacejump:DSDOC18|alias=View this same page in the current documentation} (if it exists). Looking for another version? [See all documentation|DSDOC:All Documentation].
{note}

Unreleased Documentation Header

This header is used to notify users that they are currently viewing documentation for an unreleased version of DSpace.

What it looks like:

This documentation is unreleased and still in development. It may describe features which are not yet released in DSpace.
(if it exists). Looking for another version? See all documentation

Wiki Source:

{warning:title=Unreleased Documentation}
This documentation is unreleased and still in development. *It may describe features which are not yet released in DSpace.* \\ {spacejump:DSDOC18|alias=View this same page in the current documentation} (if it exists). Looking for another version? [See all documentation|DSDOC:All Documentation]
{warning}

Documentation Shared Sidebar

As mentioned above, on each Documentation Space we want to have a shared left sidebar which keeps all our Documentation looking similar in nature and allows users to more easily jump between versions of the Documentation. This shared left sidebar is actually a very simple Wiki page (see _DocLeftSidebar), which we load into the "navigation" section of each of the Documentation spaces.

Editing The Left Sidebar:

The final result is that, when you go back to the Space, you'll see that the contents of the _DocLeftSidebar wiki page now appear in the left sidebar. You'll also notice that this Space's name should appear bolded, and when you click on different versions of the Documentation those Space names should appear bolded instead. This allows the sidebar to always be identical across all Documentation Spaces, which makes it easier to manage across all our documentation.

Reusable Content

Reusable content can be found on the ReusableContent child page.