DevDocs— API Documentation Browser

DevDocs combines multiple developer documentations in a clean and organized web UI with instant search, offline support, mobile version, dark theme, keyboard shortcuts, and more.

DevDocs was created byThibaut Couroubleand is operated byfreeCodeCamp.

We are currently searching for maintainers

Please reach out to the community onDiscordif you would like to join the team!

Keep track of development news:

• Join the devdocs chat room onDiscord
• Watch the repository onGitHub
• Follow@DevDocson Twitter

Table of Contents:Quick Start·Vision·App·Scraper·Commands·Contributing·Documentation·Related Projects·License·Questions?

Quick Start

Unless you wish to contribute to the project, we recommend using the hosted version atdevdocs.io.It's up-to-date and works offline out-of-the-box.

DevDocs is made of two pieces: a Ruby scraper that generates the documentation and metadata, and a JavaScript app powered by a small Sinatra app.

DevDocs requires Ruby 3.3.0 (defined inGemfile), libcurl, and a JavaScript runtime supported byExecJS(included in OS X and Windows;Node.json Linux). Once you have these installed, run the following commands:

git clone https://github /freeCodeCamp/devdocs.git&&cddevdocs
gem install bundler
bundle install
bundleexecthor docs:download --default
bundleexecrackup

Finally, point your browser atlocalhost:9292(the first request will take a few seconds to compile the assets). You're all set.

Thethor docs:downloadcommand is used to download pre-generated documentations from DevDocs's servers (e.g.thor docs:download html css). You can see the list of available documentations and versions by runningthor docs:list.To update all downloaded documentations, runthor docs:download --installed.To download and install all documentation this project has available, runthor docs:download --all.

Note:there is currently no update mechanism other thangit pull origin mainto update the code andthor docs:download --installedto download the latest version of the docs. To stay informed about new releases, be sure towatchthis repository.

Alternatively, DevDocs may be started as a Docker container:

#First, build the image
git clone https://github /freeCodeCamp/devdocs.git&&cddevdocs
docker build -t thibaut/devdocs.

#Finally, start a DevDocs container (access http://localhost:9292)
docker run --name devdocs -d -p 9292:9292 thibaut/devdocs

Vision

DevDocs aims to make reading and searching reference documentation fast, easy and enjoyable.

The app's main goals are to:

• Keep load times as short as possible
• Improve the quality, speed, and order of search results
• Maximize the use of caching and other performance optimizations
• Maintain a clean and readable user interface
• Be fully functional offline
• Support full keyboard navigation
• Reduce “context switch” by using a consistent typography and design across all documentations
• Reduce clutter by focusing on a specific category of content (API/reference) and inde xing only the minimum useful to most developers.

Note:DevDocs is neither a programming guide nor a search engine. All our content is pulled from third-party sources and the project doesn't intend to compete with full-text search engines. Its backbone is metadata; each piece of content is identified by a unique, "obvious" and short string. Tutorials, guides and other content that don't meet this requirement are outside the scope of the project.

App

The web app is all client-side JavaScript, written inCoffeeScript,and powered by a smallSinatra/Sprocketsapplication. It relies on files generated by thescraper.

Many of the code's design decisions were driven by the fact that the app uses XHR to load content directly into the main frame. This includes stripping the original documents of most of their HTML markup (e.g. scripts and stylesheets) to avoid polluting the main frame, and prefi xing all CSS class names with an underscore to prevent conflicts.

Another driving factor is performance and the fact that everything happens in the browser. A service worker (which comes with its own set of constraints) andlocalStorageare used to speed up the boot time, while memory consumption is kept in check by allowing the user to pick his/her own set of documentations. The search algorithm is kept simple because it needs to be fast even searching through 100,000 strings.

DevDocs being a developer tool, the browser requirements are high:

• Recent versions of Firefox, Chrome, or Opera
• Safari 11.1+
• Edge 17+
• iOS 11.3+

This allows the code to take advantage of the latest DOM and HTML5 APIs and make developing DevDocs a lot more fun!

Scraper

The scraper is responsible for generating the documentation and index files (metadata) used by theapp.It's written in Ruby under theDocsmodule.

There are currently two kinds of scrapers:UrlScraperwhich downloads files via HTTP andFileScraperwhich reads them from the local filesystem. They both make copies of HTML documents, recursively following links that match a set of rules and applying all sorts of modifications along the way, in addition to building an index of the files and their metadata. Documents are parsed usingNokogiri.

Modifications made to each document include:

• removing content such as the document structure (<html>,<head>,etc.), comments, empty nodes, etc.
• fi xing links (e.g. to remove duplicates)
• replacing all external (not scraped) URLs with their fully qualified counterpart
• replacing all internal (scraped) URLs with their unqualified and relative counterpart
• adding content, such as a title and link to the original document
• ensuring correct syntax highlighting usingPrism

These modifications are applied via a set of filters using theHTML::Pipelinelibrary. Each scraper includes filters specific to itself, one of which is tasked with figuring out the pages' metadata.

The end result is a set of normalized HTML partials and two JSON files (index + offline data). Because the index files are loaded separately by theappfollowing the user's preferences, the scraper also creates a JSON manifest file containing information about the documentations currently available on the system (such as their name, version, update date, etc.).

More information aboutscrapersandfiltersis available in thedocsfolder.

Available Commands

The command-line interface usesThor.To see all commands and options, runthor listfrom the project's root.

#Server
rackup#Start the server (ctrl+c to stop)
rackup --help#List server options

#Docs
thor docs:list#List available documentations
thor docs:download#Download one or more documentations
thor docs:manifest#Create the manifest file used by the app
thor docs:generate#Generate/scrape a documentation
thor docs:page#Generate/scrape a documentation page
thor docs:package#Package a documentation for use with docs:download
thor docs:clean#Delete documentation packages

#Console
thor console#Start a REPL
thor console:docs#Start a REPL in the "Docs" module

#Tests can be run quickly from within the console using the "test" command.
#Run "help test" for usage instructions.
thor test:all#Run all tests
thor test:docs#Run "Docs" tests
thor test:app#Run "App" tests

#Assets
thor assets:compile#Compile assets (not required in development mode)
thor assets:clean#Clean old assets

If multiple versions of Ruby are installed on your system, commands must be run throughbundle exec.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read thecontributing guidelines.

Documentation

• Adding documentations to DevDocs
• Scraper Reference
• Filter Reference
• Maintainers’ Guide

Related Projects

Made something cool? Feel free to open a PR to add a new row to this table! You might want to discover new projects viahttps://github /topics/devdocs.

Project	Description	Last commit	Stars
yannickglt/alfred-devdocs	Alfred workflow
Merith-TK/devdocs_webapp_kotlin	Android application
gruehle/dev-docs-viewer	Brackets extension
egoist/devdocs-desktop	Electron application
skeeto/devdocs-lookup	Emacs function
astoff/devdocs.el	Emacs viewer
naquad/devdocs-shell	GTK shell with Vim integration
hardpixel/devdocs-desktop	GTK application
qwfy/doc-browser	Linux application
dteoh/devdocs-macos	macOS application
Sublime Text plugin	Sublime Text plugin
mohamed3nan/DevDocs-Tab	VS Code extension (view as tab)
deibit/vscode-devdocs	VS Code extension (open the browser)
mdh34/quickDocs	Vala/Python based viewer
girishji/devdocs.vim	Vim plugin & TUI (browse inside Vim)
romainl/vim-devdocs	Vim plugin
waiting-for-dev/vim-www	Vim plugin
luckasRanarison/nvim-devdocs	Neovim plugin
toiletbril/dedoc	Terminal based viewer
Raycast Devdocs	Raycast extension	Unavailable	Unavailable

Copyright / License

Copyright 2013–2024 Thibaut Courouble andother contributors

This software is licensed under the terms of the Mozilla Public License v2.0. See theCOPYRIGHTandLICENSEfiles.

Please do not use the name DevDocs to endorse or promote products derived from this software without the maintainers' permission, except as may be necessary to comply with the notice/attribution requirements.

We also wish that any documentation file generated using this software be attributed to DevDocs. Let's be fair to all contributors by giving credit where credit's due. Thanks!

Questions?

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them on the contributor chat room onDiscord.