Installing docToolchain

Ralf D. Müller Jeremie Bresson Bennykillua Jérémie Bresson T8xi Michael Krauße Ralf D. Müller stehlih Dr. Stefan Pfeiffer Alexander Schwartz feinstaub Jakub J Jablonski jakubjab Jorge Dr. Gernot Starke Lars Francke

6 minutes to read

Getting the Wrapper

The way docToolchain is installed has changed since the v2.x release. It now uses a simple wrapper script which takes care of everything.

This wrapper helps by:

  • Ensuring that everyone using your repository uses the same docToolchain version.

  • Keeping all docToolchain technology out of your repository.

  • Wrapping your commands and directing them to your local installation.

  • Checking your docToolchain installation (if not installed, the wrapper will do it for you via direct download or Docker).

This guide explains how to set up docToolchain in the following environments:

  • A Linux/WSL2 with bash

  • Windows with PowerShell

  • Windows with cmd.exe

Please select the appropriate setup and follow these instructions to install docToolchain step by step.

Linux / WSL2 with bash
cd <your project>
curl -Lo dtcw doctoolchain.github.io/dtcw
chmod +x dtcw

if you don’t have curl installed, you can also use wget:

cd <your project>
wget doctoolchain.github.io/dtcw
chmod +x dtcw
Windows with Powershell
cd <your project>
Invoke-WebRequest doctoolchain.github.io/dtcw.ps1 -Outfile dtcw.ps1
Windows with cmd.exe
cd <your project>
curl -Lo dtcw.bat doctoolchain.github.io/dtcw.bat
dtcw.bat wraps the dtcw.ps1 script and executes it in powershell. This might be easier to use if you haven’t yet configured your powershell as a developer.
In order to support development for your project on both, Linux and Windows, it makes sense to download all three scripts to your project.
if you use cmd.exe, follow the PowerShell instructions but replace .ps1 with .bat.
dtcw uses bash as shell and thus tries to find java from within bash. Chances are that when you use dtcw from another shell like zsh, you shell knows about the right java version but your bash doesn’t. In that case, please switch to bash and make sure that the right java version is known. Afterwards, you can switch back to your shell.

Configure the Wrapper

There is no need to configure the wrapper itself if you have just downloaded it. But from time to time you should check github to see if there are new releases you want to use.

In this case, open dtcw in your favourite editor and look for the VERSION-line at the start of the file:

# find official release versions on github:
# https://github.com/docToolchain/docToolchain/releases
# set VERSION to "latest" to get the unreleased latest version
VERSION=2.0.5

Update it to match the latest release and and everything will be updated with the next run.

this will not update the wrapper (dtcw) itself. If you think you should update the wrapper, please re-install it.

There are some situation where you want to test a not-yet-released feature. In such a case, you can set the VERSION to latest and dtcw will clone or pull the current default branch of the project.

This only works with a local copy, not with a docker install.

You can also use latestdev as version. In this case, dtcw will try to clone the repository with the ssh-git protocoll. This way, you can easily point it to your fork and develop new features for docToolchain. You will find the fork in $HOME/.doctoolchain/docToolchain-latest.

latest and latestdev currently only work with the bash version of the wrapper.

Running your First Command

To get started with docToolchain, run tasks as the first command:

Linux / WSL2 with bash
./dtcw tasks --group=doctoolchain
Windows with Powershell
./dtcw.ps1 tasks --group=doctoolchain
if using cmd.exe replace .ps1 with .bat for all subsequent commands.

This command shows all docToolchain tasks and verifies that docToolchain is installed by doing the following:

  • Checking for a configuration file (and create one if none exist). Prefers a local installation.

  • Making use of Docker (if available) where there is no local installation.

If this is your first time installing docToolchain, the images download might take a while.

  • if docker is not available, it will download and install docToolchain to your home folder

    • it will then run a gradle build through the gradle wrapper. If this is your first time, it will download and install gradle.

    • the gradle build will also fetch some dependencies. This will also take a while if run for the first time..

    • build-script dependencies are fetched from a repository referenced by the property mavenRepository. By default the value https://plugins.gradle.org/m2/ is used. When a repository requiring credentials is used the properties mavenUsername and mavenPassword can be set as well.

Example command passing a custom maven repository with credentials from the command line
./gradlew generateHTML -PmavenRepository=your_maven_repo -PmavenUsername=your_username -PmavenPassword=your_pw --info

You’ll notice the installation is an incremental process and will take a while because of all the additional dependencies needed. After the first few commands, you’ll have all the required dependencies installed and things will run faster.

Existing Documents

If your project already has documents in AsciiDoc format, you’ll need to tell docToolchain where to find them.

To do so, take a look at the created docToolchainConfig.groovy and update it.

arc42 from Scratch

If you don’t have existing documents yet, or if you need a fresh start, you can get the arc42 template in AsciiDoc format.

Run the command below to tell docToolchain to download the template of your choice:

Linux / WSL2 with bash
./dtcw downloadTemplate
Windows
./dtcw.ps1 downloadTemplate

Building and Creating Templates.

By now, the docToolchain wrapper dtcw should be in your project folder along with the arc42 template.

Now Let’s render it to HTML and PDF. To do so, run the commands below:

Linux / WSL2 with bash
./dtcw generateHTML
./dtcw generatePDF
Windows
./dtcw.ps1 generateHTML
./dtcw.ps1 generatePDF

As a result, you will see the progress of your build together with some warnings which you can just ignore for the moment.

The first build generated some files within the build:

build
|-- html5
|   |-- arc42
|   |   `-- arc42.html
|   `-- images
|       |-- 05_building_blocks-EN.png
|       |-- 08-Crosscutting-Concepts-Structure-EN.png
|       `-- arc42-logo.png
`-- pdf
    |-- arc42
    |   `-- arc42.pdf
    `-- images
        |-- 05_building_blocks-EN.png
        |-- 08-Crosscutting-Concepts-Structure-EN.png
        `-- arc42-logo.png

Congratulations! If you see the same folder structure, you’ve just rendered the standard arc42 template as HTML and PDF!

Please raise an issue on github if you didn’t get the right output.

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