The DeerLab documentation/website is written in restructured-text (RST) format and built using Sphinx. In order to compile the source files of the documentation, several packages and programs are required. This is a summary of the steps to be taken before being able to compile the documentation.

In order to compile the documentation the following steps must be followed:

1. Install and setup Python

2. Install DeerLab from source (see installation instructions)

3. Install Sphinx and Sphinx extensions

    pip install sphinx
    pip install furo
    pip install sphinxcontrib-httpdomain
    pip install sphinx-gallery
    pip install sphinxcontrib-ghcontributors
    pip install sphinx-issues
    pip install sphinx-copybutton 
    pip install numpydoc
    pip install sphinx-design
   

4. Download and install dvisvgm.

To build the documentation from the source, call the Makefile or make.bat scripts:

    # To compile using the cached data
    ./docsrc/make.bat
    # To compile from scratch
    ./docsrc/make.bat clean 

If the sphinx-build command is not found, the documentation can be built with the following command

    python -m sphinx.cmd.build -d ./cache -b html ./source ../docs

To skip running the examples with the Sphinx Gallery extension (can take very long on a first build), use the option -D plot_gallery=0, e.g.

    python -m sphinx.cmd.build -E -b html ./source ../docs -D  plot_gallery=0