Canonical Sphinx extensions
This package provides several Sphinx extensions that are used in Canonical documentation (for example, in the documentation starter pack).
Note: This package used to be called lxd-sphinx-extensions
but has been renamed to canonical-sphinx-extensions
.
Installation
Install the package with the following command:
pip install canonical-sphinx-extensions
Provided extensions
The package provides several Sphinx extensions that can be used in combination or separately.
Related links
This extension allows adding related links (Discourse links and general related links) on a per-page basis.
The links are specified as metadata in the RST files.
They can be displayed at any place in the output by adapting the Sphinx template.
Enable the extension
Add related-links
to your extensions list in conf.py
to enable the extension:
extensions = [
(...),
 "canonical.related-links"
]
If you want to add Discourse links, you must also configure the prefix for your Discourse instance in the html_context
variable:
html_context = {
(...),
"discourse_prefix": "https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/"
}
You can configure different Discourse prefixes by specifying a dict:
html_context = {
(...),
"discourse_prefix": {
"lxc": "https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/",
"ubuntu": "https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/"}
}
Add related links to the template
The extension provides two functions that can be used in your template:
discourse_links(meta.discourse)
: Returns an unordered list (<ul>
) of Discourse links.related_links(meta.relatedlinks)
: Returns an unordered list (<ul>
) of related links.
For example, to include the related links in your template based on the Furo theme, place code similar to the following in your _templates/page.html
file:
{% if meta and ((meta.discourse and discourse_prefix) or meta.relatedlinks) %}
{% set furo_hide_toc_orig = furo_hide_toc %}
{% set furo_hide_toc=false %}
{% endif %}
{% block right_sidebar %}
<div class="toc-sticky toc-scroll">
{% if not furo_hide_toc_orig %}
<div class="toc-title-container">
<span class="toc-title">
{{ _("Contents") }}
</span>
</div>
<div class="toc-tree-container">
<div class="toc-tree">
{{ toc }}
</div>
</div>
{% endif %}
{% if meta and ((meta.discourse and discourse_prefix) or meta.relatedlinks) %}
<div class="relatedlinks-title-container">
<span class="relatedlinks-title">
Related links
</span>
</div>
<div class="relatedlinks-container">
<div class="relatedlinks">
{% if meta.discourse and discourse_prefix %}
{{ discourse_links(meta.discourse) }}
{% endif %}
{% if meta.relatedlinks %}
{{ related_links(meta.relatedlinks) }}
{% endif %}
</div>
</div>
{% endif %}
</div>
{% endblock right_sidebar %}
See the Sphinx documentation for information on how templating works in Sphinx.
Style the output
The extension comes with a CSS file that is suitable for the template example as given above.
You can override these styles or define your own, depending on the theme and template that you use.
Specify links for a page
Specify your Discourse links and related links in the metadata at the top of the page.
For Discourse links, specify only the topic IDs (in a comma-separated list).
If you have defined several Discourse prefixes, specify both key and ID (for example, abc:1234
).
For related links, specify the full URLs (in a comma-separated list).
The link text is extracted automatically or can be specified in Markdown syntax.
You can also specify a backup link text (using curly brackets instead of square brackets) that is used only if the link title cannot be extracted.
Note that spaces are ignored; if you need spaces in the title, replace them with  
.
If Sphinx complains about the metadata value because it starts with "[", enclose the full value in double quotes.
The following example uses MyST syntax for the metadata:
---
discourse: 1234, abc:56789, abc:[Link text](1234)
relatedlinks: https://www.example.com, [Link text](https://www.example.com), {Backup text}(https://www.example.com)
---
YouTube links
This extension adds a :youtube:
directive that you can use to add links to YouTube videos at any place in an input file.
Enable the extension
Add youtube-links
to your extensions list in conf.py
to enable the extension:
extensions = [
(...),
 "canonical.youtube-links"
]
Style the output
The extension comes with a CSS file that implements the style for the p.youtube_link
element.
You can override the style in your own style sheet.
Add YouTube links
To add a YouTube link to your page, use the :youtube:
directive and specify the link to the video.
For example, in MyST syntax:
```{youtube} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iNpiL-lrXU
```
To override the title, add a :title:
option.
For example:
```{youtube} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iNpiL-lrXU
:title: Watch on YouTube!
```
Custom roles
This extension adds custom roles that can be used in rST.
Currently implemented:
spellexception
- Includes the provided text in <spellexception></spellexception>
, which makes it possible to exclude it from a spelling checker.literalref
- Renders the provided reference in code-style, which excludes the link text from the spelling checker.
You can provide either just the link (for example, :literalref:`www.example.com`
, which results in www.example.com
as the link text and https://www.example.com
as the link URL) or a separate link text and URL (for example, :literalref:`xyzcommand <www.example.com>`
).none
- Excludes the provided text from the output.
This is useful for comments, especially when providing wokeignore
rules.
Config options
This extension adds a :config:option:
directive that you can use to generate expandable configuration options, a :config:option:
role for linking to those options, and an index that lists all config options.
Enable the extension
Add config-options
to your extensions list in conf.py
to enable the extension:
extensions = [
(...),
"canonical.config-options"
]
Style the output
The extension comes with a CSS file that implements the classes needed to style the configuration options.
This CSS file requires the following colour variables to be defined:
color-content-foreground
: normal text colourcolor-link
: link text colourcolor-table-border
: colour for table borderscolor-orange
: contrast colour (used for table cell background)
You can override the style in your own style sheet.
Add configuration options
Use the :config:option:
directive to add a configuration option.
It takes two parameters: the config option name and the scope.
If the scope is not provided, server
is used as the default scope.
You must provide a :shortdesc:
option.
Optional options are :type:
, :liveupdate:
, :condition:
, :readonly:
, :resource:
, :managed:
, :required:
, and :scope:
(this scope is not related to the option scope specified by the parameter).
You can use formatting in the short description, the options, and the main description.
When starting a value with markup, or if you want to prevent a value from being processed (for example, to prevent a "no" value to be transformed to "False"), put quotes around the value.
For example, in MyST syntax:
```{config:option} backups.compression_algorithm server
:shortdesc: Compression algorithm for images
:type: string
:scope: global
:default: "`gzip`"
Compression algorithm to use for new images (`bzip2`, `gzip`, `lzma`, `xz` or `none`)
```
For more examples, see https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/docs/latest/networks/config_options_cheat_sheet.
Link to configuration options
To link to a configuration option, use the :config:option:
role.
You cannot override the link text (which wouldn't make much sense anyway, because it is displayed as code).
For example, in MyST syntax:
{config:option}`instance:migration.incremental.memory.iterations`
Link to the index
You can link to the index of configuration options with the config-options
anchor.
For example, in MyST syntax:
{ref}`config-options`
Terminal output
This extension adds a :terminal:
directive that you can use to show a terminal view with commands and output.
You can customise the prompt and configure whether the lines should wrap.
Enable the extension
Add terminal-output
to your extensions list in conf.py
to enable the extension:
extensions = [
(...),
 "canonical.terminal-output"
]
Style the output
The extension comes with a CSS file that implements the classes needed to style the terminal output.
You can override the style in your own style sheet.
Add a terminal view
To add a terminal view to your page, use the :terminal:
directive and specify the the input (as :input:
option) and output (as the main content of the directive).
Any lines prefixed with :input:
in the main content are treated as input as well.
To override the prompt (user@host:~$
by default), specify the :user:
, :dir:
and/or :host:
options.
To make the terminal scroll horizontally instead of wrapping long lines, add :scroll:
.
For example, in MyST syntax:
Single command sample:
```{terminal}
:input: single command
:user: root
:host: vm
:dir: /tmp/dir/
output line one
output line two
```
Multiple command sample:
```{terminal}
:user: root
:host: vm
:dir: /tmp/dir/
:input: a command
output line one
output line two
:input: another command
more output
```
Filtered ToC
This extension adds a :filtered-toctree:
directive that is almost the same as the normal :toctree:
directive but allows excluding pages based on specified filters.
Enable the extension
Add filtered-toc
to your extensions list in conf.py
to enable the extension:
extensions = [
(...),
 "canonical.filtered-toc"
]
Configure the filters
Define filters that you want to exclude from your documentation in the toc_filter_exclude
variable in your conf.py
.
For example:
toc_filter_exclude = ['draft','internal']
You can use environment variables or build parameters to distinguish between different settings for the toc_filter_exclude
variable in your conf.py
.
For example:
if ('TOPICAL' in os.environ) and (os.environ['TOPICAL'] == 'True'):
toc_filter_exclude = ['diataxis']
else:
toc_filter_exclude = ['topical']
Use the :filtered-toctree:
directive
The :filtered-toctree:
directive works just as the normal :toctree:
directive, but you can add a filter to each line.
The filter must start and end with a colon (:
) and contains any string in between.
The string between the colons is what you would specify in the toc_filter_exclude
variable (however, you can use any string, even if it's not specified in the toc_filter_exclude
variable).
You can put the filter either at the front of the line or right in front of the file name or path.
You can only specify one filter per line.
For example, in MyST syntax:
```{filtered-toctree}
:maxdepth: 1
:internal:/tutorial/first_steps
:draft:Installation </installing>
Get support <:external:/support>
```
In this case, all three topics would be included by default.
When setting toc_filter_exclude = ['draft','internal']
, only Get support
would be included.
Contributor listing
This extension allows adding a link that displays all contributors for a page.
The contributors are retrieved from the Git history of each file.
The link can be displayed at any place in the output by adapting the Sphinx template.
Enable the extension
Add canonical.contributor-listing
to your extensions list in conf.py
to enable the extension:
extensions = [
(...),
 "canonical.contributor-listing"
]
You can then control whether contributors are displayed by setting the display_contributors
field in the html_context
variable:
html_context = {
(...),
"display_contributors": True,
}
You can configure a time frame for retrieving contributors by specifying a value for display_contributors_since
:
html_context = {
(...),
"display_contributors_since": "3 months",
}
Add contributor link to the template
The extension provides a get_contributors_for_file
function that can be used in your template.
This function returns an alphabetical list of tuples that contain the name of the contributor and the link to their latest commit to the file.
For example, to include the contributor link in your template based on the Furo theme, place code similar to the following at an appropriate location in your _templates/footer.html
file:
{% if display_contributors and pagename and page_source_suffix %}
{% set contributors = get_contributors_for_file(pagename, page_source_suffix) %}
{% if contributors %}
{% if contributors | length > 1 %}
<a class="display-contributors">Thanks to the {{ contributors |length }} contributors!</a>
{% else %}
<a class="display-contributors">Thanks to our contributor!</a>
{% endif %}
<div id="overlay"></div>
<ul class="all-contributors">
{% for contributor in contributors %}
<li>
<a href="{{ contributor[1] }}" class="contributor">{{ contributor[0] }}</a>
</li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>
{% endif %}
{% endif %}
See the Sphinx documentation for information on how templating works in Sphinx.
Style the output
The extension comes with a CSS file that is suitable for the template example as given above.
You can override these styles or define your own, depending on the theme and template that you use.