========================================
The Django admin documentation generator
========================================

.. module:: django.contrib.admindocs
    :synopsis: Django's admin documentation generator.

.. currentmodule:: django.contrib.admindocs

Django's :mod:`~django.contrib.admindocs` app pulls documentation from the
docstrings of models, views, template tags, and template filters for any app in
:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` and makes that documentation available from the
:mod:`Django admin <django.contrib.admin>`.

You may, to some extent, utilize :mod:`~django.contrib.admindocs` to quickly
document your own code. This has limited usage, however, as the app is
primarily intended for documenting templates, template tags, and filters.
For example, model methods that require arguments are purposefully omitted
from the documentation because they can't be invoked from templates. The app
can still be useful since it doesn't require you to write any extra
documentation (besides docstrings) and is conveniently available from the
:mod:`Django admin <django.contrib.admin>`.

Overview
========

To activate the :mod:`~django.contrib.admindocs`, you will need to do
the following:

* Add :mod:`django.contrib.admindocs` to your :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`.
* Add ``(r'^admin/doc/', include('django.contrib.admindocs.urls'))`` to
  your ``urlpatterns``. Make sure it's included *before* the
  ``r'^admin/'`` entry, so that requests to ``/admin/doc/`` don't get
  handled by the latter entry.
* Install the docutils Python module (http://docutils.sf.net/).
* **Optional:** Using the admindocs bookmarklets requires
  ``django.contrib.admindocs.middleware.XViewMiddleware`` to be installed.

Once those steps are complete, you can start browsing the documentation by
going to your admin interface and clicking the "Documentation" link in the
upper right of the page.

Documentation helpers
=====================

The following special markup can be used in your docstrings to easily create
hyperlinks to other components:

=================   =======================
Django Component    reStructuredText roles
=================   =======================
Models              ``:model:`app_label.ModelName```
Views               ``:view:`app_label.view_name```
Template tags       ``:tag:`tagname```
Template filters    ``:filter:`filtername```
Templates           ``:template:`path/to/template.html```
=================   =======================

Model reference
===============

The **models** section of the ``admindocs`` page describes each model in the
system along with all the fields and methods available on it. Relationships
to other models appear as hyperlinks. Descriptions are pulled from ``help_text``
attributes on fields or from docstrings on model methods.

.. versionchanged:: 1.9

    The **models** section of the ``admindocs`` now describes methods that take
    arguments as well. In previous versions it was restricted to methods
    without arguments.

A model with useful documentation might look like this::

    class BlogEntry(models.Model):
        """
        Stores a single blog entry, related to :model:`blog.Blog` and
        :model:`auth.User`.
        """
        slug = models.SlugField(help_text="A short label, generally used in URLs.")
        author = models.ForeignKey(
            User,
            models.SET_NULL,
            blank=True, null=True,
        )
        blog = models.ForeignKey(Blog, models.CASCADE)
        ...

        def publish(self):
            """Makes the blog entry live on the site."""
            ...

View reference
==============

Each URL in your site has a separate entry in the ``admindocs`` page, and
clicking on a given URL will show you the corresponding view. Helpful things
you can document in your view function docstrings include:

* A short description of what the view does.
* The **context**, or a list of variables available in the view's template.
* The name of the template or templates that are used for that view.

For example::

    from django.shortcuts import render

    from myapp.models import MyModel

    def my_view(request, slug):
        """
        Display an individual :model:`myapp.MyModel`.

        **Context**

        ``mymodel``
            An instance of :model:`myapp.MyModel`.

        **Template:**

        :template:`myapp/my_template.html`
        """
        context = {'mymodel': MyModel.objects.get(slug=slug)}
        return render(request, 'myapp/my_template.html', context)

Template tags and filters reference
===================================

The **tags** and **filters** ``admindocs`` sections describe all the tags and
filters that come with Django (in fact, the :ref:`built-in tag reference
<ref-templates-builtins-tags>` and :ref:`built-in filter reference
<ref-templates-builtins-filters>` documentation come directly from those
pages). Any tags or filters that you create or are added by a third-party app
will show up in these sections as well.


Template reference
==================

While ``admindocs`` does not include a place to document templates by
themselves, if you use the ``:template:`path/to/template.html``` syntax in a
docstring the resulting page will verify the path of that template with
Django's :ref:`template loaders <template-loaders>`. This can be a handy way to
check if the specified template exists and to show where on the filesystem that
template is stored.


Included Bookmarklets
=====================

One bookmarklet is available from the ``admindocs`` page:

Documentation for this page
    Jumps you from any page to the documentation for the view that generates
    that page.

Using this bookmarklet requires that ``XViewMiddleware`` is installed and that
you are logged into the :mod:`Django admin <django.contrib.admin>` as a
:class:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User` with
:attr:`~django.contrib.auth.models.User.is_staff` set to ``True``.
