Instructions for Contributing to the Docs/Website

• Fork this repository
• Deploy the site locally
• Deploy the site in docker (recommended)
• Add your changes
• Generate image preview
• Create Pull Request

Deploy the site locally

Note: the local deployment are not preferable as the local gems can affect transitive dependencies or even collisions on bundle install. The recommended approach is to use a docker container provided with all dependency installed.

The below commands set up your environment for running GitHub pages locally. Any edits you make will be viewable on a lightweight webserver that runs on your local machine.

Install Ruby 3.2.2. If you're on Ubuntu, run this commands:

sudo apt-get install ruby-full build-essential zlib1g-dev git
sudo gem install bundler

Note: Ruby 2.7.x is not supported since github-pages 232

• If you're on a Mac, follow these instructions and choose a Ruby version (3.2.2).
• If you're on a Windows machine you can use the Ruby Installer. During the installation make sure to check the option for Add Ruby executables to your PATH.

Clone our site:

git clone https://github.com/thingsboard/thingsboard.github.io.git

Make any changes you want. Then, to see your changes locally:

cd thingsboard.github.io
sudo bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve --host 0.0.0.0

If you are struggling with bundle install please try to delete the dependency lock file or use a Docker approach

rm -rf Gemfile.lock

In case you change the layout or website structure you might need to cleanup the cache:

rm -rf _site .jekyll-metadata

or execute the below script from the project root directory:

./restart.sh

Your copy of the site will then be viewable at: http://localhost:4000 (or wherever Jekyll tells you).

Deploy the site in Docker (RECOMMENDED)

These instructions will help to run the thingsboard/thingsboard.github.io project in the docker. You do not need to install additional dependencies and packages, everything is already built into the docker image.

If you do not have docker installed, you need to install it. You can do this by following the installation instructions: Docker Engine installation overview

If you do not have a local thingsboard.github.io repository, you need to clone project into the "website" directory.

git clone https://github.com/thingsboard/thingsboard.github.io.git website

Build and run the site using the Docker

Please replace the THINGSBOARD_WEBSITE_DIR with the full path to your local thingsboard.github.io repository.

To deploy a fork, you need to replace the environment variable PAGES_REPO_NWO with the name of your repository. As example:
PAGES_REPO_NWO="your_github_nickname/thingsboard.github.io"

docker pull thingsboard/website
docker run --rm -p 4000:4000 --name thingsboard_website -e PAGES_REPO_NWO="thingsboard/thingsboard.github.io" --volume="THINGSBOARD_WEBSITE_DIR:/website" thingsboard/website

Deploy the site using the docker-compose file

To deploy a fork, you need to replace the environment variable PAGES_REPO_NWO (in docker-compose.yaml) with the name of your repository. As example:
PAGES_REPO_NWO: "your_github_nickname/thingsboard.github.io"

To start the docker container with docker-compose, run the command:

docker compose up - d

You can rebuild the website with:

docker compose restart

In about 2-7 minutes (depending on PC performance and cache), your copy of the site will be available for viewing at http://localhost:4000

Image preview generator

For new *.png images preview is required along with original images.

To create a previews use the script

#run once
#install mogrify utility to perform resize 
sudo apt install graphicsmagick-imagemagick-compat

Usage:

./generate-previews.sh path file_mask*.png

Example:

./generate-previews.sh images/solution-templates *.png

Image preview generator in docker

Usage:

docker exec thingsboard_website bash -c "./generate-previews.sh path file_mask*.png"

Example:

docker exec thingsboard_website bash -c "./generate-previews.sh images/solution-templates *.png"

NOTE: This command must be executed with the running container

Linkchecker

Use the following command to check the broken links.

docker run -it --rm --network=host ghcr.io/linkchecker/linkchecker --check-extern http://0.0.0.0:4000/

Update pages in _includes/docs/pe/user-guide/install directory in accordance with thingsboard/thingsborad-pe repositories:

Use the following command from the project root directory to regenerate configuration pages (first script parameter is TB version: 'ce' or 'pe', second parameter is relative path to TB repository):

python3 generate_config_pages.py ce ../thingsboard