Howto add documentation to TYPO3 Extension

Christian, you are totally on the right track: Yes, provide some good documentation! More and more people really do. So I'm sure, 2017 will be THE year of documentation breakthrough.

In general this is the minimum needed: Add a file ./Documentation/Index.rst to your extension and write your documentation in there. Use reStructuredText as markup.

Quickstart:

To have a better start with more bells and whistles this is what you really should do at the moment:

• Get yourself one of the T3DocumentationStarter projects that look like https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/drafts/github/T3DocumentationStarter/Public-Info-000/.

• Read the frontpage of the starter to learn how it works.

• For example, this one is reserved for you: https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/drafts/github/T3DocumentationStarter/Public-Info-041/

• Edit directly at Github. Just do a little update and save (=push), and some very few minutes later you can reload the page and see what the server has rendered for you. You don't have to install or render anything yourself. The server will do that for you.

• Or work with Github as you usually do.

• To become the owner of that project send a mail with you Github username to the docteam to [email protected] and ask for a T3DocumentationStarter project.

• Later: Copy the ./Documentation folder of the starter project to your extension. Write your documentation. Edit the metadata in ./Documentation/Settings.cfg and you are done.

Come to the sunny side of documentation - have fun!

PS: Now on https://docs.typo3.org/Tips/TipOfTheDay/Index.html#how-to-start-documentation-for-your-typo3-extension as well

As said, you don't need to render your documentation locally, even though it can make life easier.

1. Using sphinx: If you want to write rst files, take a look at basic examples like https://github.com/georgringer/eventnews or https://github.com/sup7even/mailchimp/tree/master/Documentation

2. Single files: But you can even write simpler documentation. Take a look at https://github.com/georgringer/page_speed/blob/master/README.rst which is a single file and then rendered as well https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/extensions/page_speed/.

3. Markdown: If you are not comfortable with rest, you can place a README.md directly into the extension directory, which is then rendered as well!

---

The full documentation for writing docs can be found here: https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/CoreApiReference/ExtensionArchitecture/Documentation/Index.html

You don't need to setup Sphinx to write documentation. The docs are plain textfiles, so nothing should stop you there.

Sphinx is helpful when you want to test your documentation, though. I reported your errors to Martin Bless, who is in charge of the docs and he will update the guide or get in touch with you asap.