Documentation

Datui uses mdBook to build static documentation web pages from markdown files.

The documentation markdown files can be found in the docs subdirectory.

Build Documentation

Install mdBook

If you used the Setup Script, mdBook is already installed.

Building the documentation requires mdbook to be available in your terminal.

I recommend using cargo to install it. It will be available into your ~/.cargo/bin/, where the documentation build script will look for it. You may also add that location to your PATH if you like.

cargo install mdbook

Build

To build the entire documentation site:

scripts/docs/build_all_docs_local.sh

This will populate the book directory with the site’s files.

At the end it will ask you if you would like a server to view the docs, or you can simply open the index.html with your web browser.

To view locally, you can:
  1. Open book/index.html in your browser
  2. Or use a simple HTTP server:
     python3 -m http.server 8000 --directory book
     Then visit: http://localhost:8000

Start a local HTTP server to view the docs? (y/n)

Generated reference: command-line options

docs/reference/command-line-options.md is generated automatically from the application’s Clap definitions. Do not edit it manually.

The docs build process (build_single_version_docs.sh, build_all_docs_local.sh) copies docs/ to a temp directory, generates CLI options into that copy, then runs mdbook from the temp tree.

To emit the options markdown on demand:

python3 scripts/docs/generate_command_line_options.py              # print to terminal
python3 scripts/docs/generate_command_line_options.py -o path.md   # write to path

Check documentation links

Use lychee to check built documentation for broken links:

cargo install lychee
./scripts/docs/check_doc_links.sh [--build] [--online] [PATH]

• --build: Build docs for main first (build_single_version_docs.sh main), then check.
• --online: Also check external URLs (default: offline, internal links only).
• PATH: Directory to check (default: book/main). Relative paths are resolved from the repo root.

By default the script checks internal links only (--offline), so it runs quickly and does not require network access. Use --online to verify external URLs. The script exits with a non-zero code if any broken links are found.