/help

Contents of the fortrabbit help in markdown format

fortrabbit help pages

Welcome to the source of the official fortrabbit documentation. These files here are written in Markdown, with a little frontmatter meta-data on top. We include this repo as a Git subtree and publish it on: https://help.fortrabbit.com

This repo lives under (clone URL):

Contributing

Found a typo or an error? Do you want to add something about your framework or service of choice? You are more than welcome to contribute. Please send us a Pull Request.

Do you run a 3rd party service or an open source project that can be integrated with fortrabbit? You are also more than welcome to add it.

_WIP

The folder _WIP contains — as you might can guess — work in progress. All infos in there are subject to major errors. Please contribute!

File name conventions

  • use dashes instead of spaces or lowdashes for filen ames
  • use the short versions: -uni, -pro, -old on the end for different stacks

Front Matter syntax

Each markdown file requires a yaml block at the top. See here which attributes are available, how and when to use them.

# Rendering

# which template to use - "article", if in doubt — REQUIRED
template: article



# Headline & display

# title shown in navigation -> short but descriptive — REQUIRED
naviTitle: About Apps

# title shown in article header on display
title: What is an App anyways?

# lead text for article detail view -> what to expect from content
lead: Forget servers. Think services instead. Learn the basic fortrabbit concepts.

# alternative to lead text. when lead is intro & excerpt is overview or lead is not available
excerpt: Get to know about the basic concepts.

# disable TOC generation for this article
noToc: true



# Stack meta

# where to show this: uni, pro old, all — REQUIRED when required
stack:     univ

# link to the Old App version
oldLink:   mysql-old

# link to the Universal App verison
uniLink:   mysql-uni

# link to the professional version
proLink:   mysql-pro



# General meta data

# When the article was last checked?
# Don't forget to edit this each time you have reviewed a page
# pages older than one year will be marked outdated
reviewed: 2016-12-20

# set a warning that this article is outdated, no matter the date
deprecated: 1


# Under which headline the content will be shown on home
# (use underscore instead of space)
group: Extending_fortrabbit

# don't show in list on homepage
dontList: true

# do not include in search, don't show in search results
dontIndex: true

# additional keywords for document search to help users find this article
keywords:
    - foo
    - bar


# Extended meta data

# The actual link you will send people to (for external services)
websiteLink: https://www.wordpress.org?utm_source=fortrabbit

# A human readable version of that same link, exclude clutter!
websiteLinkText: www.wordpress.org

# set for latency relevant 3rd party services, otherwise use nor acceptable
dataCenters: n/a

# logo shown for 3rd party service or open source
image: myfunkyimage.png

# type, for CMS/framework
type:  CMS

Horizontal rulers

  • --- don't use this, otherwise the whole help page won't be rendered
  • - - - use this

Dynamic help

Those values will be replaced by JS when users are logged in:

SSH user: {{ssh-user}}
Region:   {{region}}
Your app: {{app-name}}

It will dynamically show the correct code examples and Dashboard links.

Dashboard links

You can have certain parts in Markdown available only for Users who are logged in like so:

<div markdown="1" data-user="known">

[Set up a new domain for your App {{app-name}}](https://dashboard.fortrabbit.com/apps/{{app-name}}/domains/new/name)

</div>

This parses markdown inside the DIV. With the data-user attribute it checks if the user is logged in. links to the Dashboard will be styled as buttons — use a verb to start them!

Code examples

  • try to keep code examples together in one block, avoid mixing paragraphs and code blocks

Bash

  • each command should have
  • show output only when necessary
  • output should be a comment
  • $ to start a command

PHP

  • when there is code between use: other code …

Install guide skeleton

  • file name: install-wordpress-uni
  • Dashboard settings first
  • Mini guide in the middle > time to WOW
  • Migration/Tuning after that

Writing help & blog articles

  • Don't bullshit. Avoid the use of marketing buzzwords.
  • Avoid "eg", otherwise choose one style to write it
  • Keep lists readable (no sublists, etc).
  • available headlines in text: h2, h3, h4, please don't go deeper.
  • Text structure is important, but readability is even more important.
  • Use ASCII art to illustrate topographies and such things.
  • code blocks follow standard markdown formatting.
  • Use sentence case in headlines.
  • Don't use too many headlines to structure text.
  • Don't use italic > it looks ugly, it's rendered by the browser not the font.
  • Start code examples right away: PHP without "<?php", Bash without "$"
  • Don't use a paragraph for every sentence.
  • Write speaking links, not like so: [here](http://somewhere) but so: [GitHub project](http…)

Maintainability

Find the right balance between being general and being precise (aka Captain Obvious). Very detailed step-by-step articles are easy to follow but get outdated very quickly. Don't "bury" numbers (like prices and limits) in articles. All those numbers must be managed in the "pricing" and the "specs" page.

Link checking

This example shows how to use the linkcheck command line tool (not included here) for macOS:

$ mv linkcheck.mac /usr/local/bin
$ chmod +x linkcheck.mac
$ linkcheck.mac --url http://help.fortrabbit.dev

fortrabbit owned words and common casing

  • Account — profile, account
  • Activities history, diary, log
  • Admin admin
  • App Secrets — Secrets
  • App URL
  • App — app, website, application
  • Billing Contact bc
  • Company — company
  • Cron Job — cron, cron job
  • Dashboard — control panel, console
  • Developer developer
  • fortrabbit scheduler — scheduler
  • fortrabbit
  • fortrabbit.yml — deployment file
  • Help — documentation, handbook, docs
  • HTTP — http
  • HTTPS — https
  • Owner owner
  • root path document root, doc root
  • terminal Terminal, shell, bash
  • Tinkering level Development plans (single Node App plans on Professional stack)
  • URL — Url, url
  • User — member, account
  • Workers — Worker
  • Professional Stack — Pro Stack, Professional stack
  • Universal Stack — Hobby stack, hobby stack
  • {{ interchangble-value }} < something the users will need to modify
  • {{ your-app }} {{ my-app }}, {{ app-name }}

Collaboration words

  • Collaboration = Company collaboration + App collaboration
  • Company collaboration with Company plans, Admins, Owners & App Collaborators
  • Company plans — the plans one can book
  • App collaboration with App Collaborators
  • App Collaborator = Access to Apps
  • Team members = Company members + App Collaborators
  • Company member — Company collaborator
  • Admin = the Role
  • Owner = the Role
  • App Collaborator
  • Role — permission, acccess role

Times & dates

  • use the same time-zone E V E R Y W H E R E when communicating times

  • the communicated time-zone is UTC

  • use relative times (an hour ago, a few seconds ago)

  • Markup example: <time datetime="2016-01-01 08:22:10 UTC" title="2016-01-01 08:22:10 UTC">A few minutes ago</time>

  • ms — MS

  • s - scds

  • m - mins, min

  • h - hrs

Metric units

  • 16 MB — mb, capital letters, a space between value and unit
  • 3 GB 3078 MB < prefer a readable unit
  • 0 B
  • 16 KB
  • 10k — 10,000
  • times a value: ×, &times; x

Other words

  • €23 < without space char
  • $23 < without space char
  • add-on — add-ons, Add-on, Add-On, AddOn
  • client — customer, user
  • Component plan
  • default domain
  • e-mail — eMail, email, Email, E-Mail
  • free trial — test flight, test drive
  • host — server
  • a space char belongs before the unit
  • MySQL — MySql
  • OPcache — OPCache Opcache
  • node — server
  • non-persistent storage — storageless
  • payment details — complete account, payment credentials
  • PHP requests — requests
  • PHP response time — response time
  • PHP — Php
  • Scale — upgrade
  • session time
  • SFTP
  • SSH Key — pubkey, public SSH key
  • SSH
  • SSL cert — SSL certificate
  • web storage — webspace
  • Composer — composer
  • macOS — Mac OS X (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS)

Avoid words list

please do not use the following "bullshit" words:

  • great
  • awesome
  • innovative
  • game-changing
  • empowering
  • revolutionizing

Gender-neutral language

When referencing a hypothetical person, such as "a user with a session cookie", use gender-neutral pronouns (they/their/them). For example, instead of:

  • he or she, use they
  • him or her, use them
  • his or her, use their
  • his or hers, use theirs
  • himself or herself, use themselves

Corporate identity

There is no fortrabbit logo as graphic file. To create the brand logo just type: "• fortrabbit" — bullet character, a normal space and then name of the company with a f. Use the Georgia Typeface in bold and italic. Use lot's of whitespace around the logo, don't put other text nearby the logo. When using the company name within a paragraph of text, write "fortrabbit" with a f, even at the beginning of a sentence. Don't use the bullet or any other typeface here.

Logos and brand assets

Place logos for external services and projects in the media folder. They ideally should be svg or either PNG with transparent background. Favor an "image mark" over a "word image mark".