Mkdocs setup configuration

Installation

Arch Linux

Install The Following Packages

If using a different distro, this is as simple as running the following

pip install mkdocs

If not, install the following

sudo pacman -S python python-pip

MkDocs requires a recent version of Python, check your version with

$ python --version
Python 3.8.2
$ pip --version
pip 20.0.2 from /usr/local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pip (python 3.8)

Configuration

If you try to install mkdocs on arch using pip it will fail, and the following message will be displayed(or similar)

❯ pip install mkdocs
error: externally-managed-environment

× This environment is externally managed
╰─> To install Python packages system-wide, try 'pacman -S
    python-xyz', where xyz is the package you are trying to
    install.

    If you wish to install a non-Arch-packaged Python package,
    create a virtual environment using 'python -m venv path/to/venv'.
    Then use path/to/venv/bin/python and path/to/venv/bin/pip.

    If you wish to install a non-Arch packaged Python application,
    it may be easiest to use 'pipx install xyz', which will manage a
    virtual environment for you. Make sure you have python-pipx
    installed via pacman.

note: If you believe this is a mistake, please contact your Python installation or OS distribution provider. You can override this, at the risk of breaking your Python installation or OS, by passing --break-system-packages.
hint: See PEP 668 for the detailed specification.

This is a expected behavior on Arch thus, we need to use python-venv to utilize mkdocs

Setting Up Python VENV For mkdocs

# First, create a folder
mkdir ~/folder-path

# Now, create a virutal python enviroment
python -m venv ~/folder-path

# Navigate to the 'folder-path' you should see some files in there
cd ~/folder-path

# Activate the virtual enviroment by running
source ./bin/activate

# To deactivate, simply run
deactivate

# Now, we can install mkdocs by running
pip install mkdocs

There's a single configuration file named mkdocs.yml, and a folder named docs that will contain your documentation source files (docs is the default value for the docs_dir configuration setting).

Windows - WSL

Troubleshooting

To avoid having to create python venv over and over again when doing work on different machines. Add the following parameters to your .gitignore file

# Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files
__pycache__/
*.py[cod]
*$py.class

# C extensions
*.so

# Distribution / packaging
.Python
build/
develop-eggs/
dist/
downloads/
eggs/
.eggs/
lib/
lib64/
parts/
sdist/
var/
wheels/
pip-wheel-metadata/
share/python-wheels/
*.egg-info/
.installed.cfg
*.egg
MANIFEST
bin/

# PyInstaller
#  Usually these files are written by a python script from a template
#  before PyInstaller builds the exe, so as to inject date/other infos into it.
*.manifest
*.spec

# Installer logs
pip-log.txt
pip-delete-this-directory.txt

# Unit test / coverage reports
htmlcov/
.tox/
.nox/
.coverage
.coverage.*
.cache
nosetests.xml
coverage.xml
*.cover
*.py,cover
.hypothesis/
.pytest_cache/

# Translations
*.mo
*.pot

# Django stuff:
*.log
local_settings.py
db.sqlite3
db.sqlite3-journal

# Flask stuff:
instance/
.webassets-cache

# Scrapy stuff:
.scrapy

# Sphinx documentation
docs/_build/

# PyBuilder
target/

# Jupyter Notebook
.ipynb_checkpoints

# IPython
profile_default/
ipython_config.py

# pyenv
.python-version

# pipenv
#   According to pypa/pipenv#598, it is recommended to include Pipfile.lock in version control.
#   However, in case of collaboration, if having platform-specific dependencies or dependencies
#   having no cross-platform support, pipenv may install dependencies that don't work, or not
#   install all needed dependencies.
#Pipfile.lock

# PEP 582; used by e.g. github.com/David-OConnor/pyflow
__pypackages__/

# Celery stuff
celerybeat-schedule
celerybeat.pid

# SageMath parsed files
*.sage.py

# Environments
.env
.venv
env/
venv/
ENV/
env.bak/
venv.bak/

# Spyder project settings
.spyderproject
.spyproject

# Rope project settings
.ropeproject

# mkdocs documentation
/site

# mypy
.mypy_cache/
.dmypy.json
dmypy.json

# Pyre type checker
.pyre/