Installing

The development environment setup requires installation of the following software:

  1. Ruby - Needed by Jekyll. Jekyll is the static site generator that generates the website and docs.
  2. Node.js - Needs to be installed in order to install all the required development and JavaScript dependencies.
  3. Python - Neeeded by Jekyll dependencies like Pygments.

Mac OS X

Ruby

Install Homebrew from this site, and then run:

brew install ruby@2.0

Node.js

Go to this site, and click the “Install” button. Then run the downloaded file and follow the on-screen instructions. Make sure that the option to install NPM is enabled, if you see one.

Python

Mac OS X comes with Python 2.7 pre-installed. Else, follow these steps:

  1. Download this installer from this page.
  2. Run the downloaded file.

Windows

Ruby

Follow these steps:

  1. Download this installer from this page.
  2. Run the downloaded file.
    1. Use the default installation path (usually C:\Ruby22).
    2. Make sure the ‘add executable to path’ option is checked.
  3. Download this Ruby DevKit self-extracting archive from the same website.
  4. Run the downloaded file.
    1. Use the following extraction path: C:\Ruby22DevKit.
  5. Open cmd.exe.

    1. Go to the extraction path:

       cd C:\Ruby22DevKit

    2. Run these commands (following any instructions they give):

       ruby dk.rb init
 ruby dk.rb install

    3. Close cmd.exe.

Node.js

Go to this site, and click the “Install” button. Then run the downloaded file and follow the on-screen instructions. Make sure that the option to install NPM is enabled, if you see one.

Python

Follow these steps:

  1. Download this installer from this page.
  2. Run the downloaded file.
    1. Use the default installation path
    2. Make sure the ‘add executable to path’ option is checked.

Linux

Ruby

Run the commands from this site that apply to your Linux distribution.

Node.js

Follow the instructions on this site.

Python

The latest version of CentOS, Fedora, Redhat Enterprise (RHEL) and Ubuntu come with Python 2.7 pre-installed. Else, follow the steps from this site.

Check Installations

Verify Ruby

Ruby 2.0 is required to build the docs. NOTE: The docs will not build with Ruby 1.8, 1.9 or 2.4.

Verify your Ruby installation by running:

ruby --version

Verify Node.js

Verify your Node.js installation by running:

node --version
npm --version

Verify Python

Python 2.7 is also required to build the docs. NOTE: The docs will not build with Python 3.0 or greater.

Verify your Python installation by running:

python --version

The version must be 2.7.x.

Local repo setup

Clone the cordova-docs GitHub repo to a local folder.

Dependencies

Ruby

Once Ruby and Node.js are installed, navigate to local repo folder and install Ruby dependencies by running:

gem install bundler
bundle install --path ./ruby_modules

This will install the required Ruby Gems locally into a subfolder called ruby_modules in your repo folder. On some systems, the above commands need to be prefixed with sudo. Similarly on Windows, the cmd window in which those commands are to be run might need to have been “Run as Administrator.”

JavaScript

Finally, install Node.js and JavaScript dependencies by running:

npm install

Troubleshooting

SSL certificate issue while executing gem install bundler on Windows

Try copying the certificate from GlobalSignRootCerficateAuthority into C:\Ruby22\lib\ruby\2.2.0\rubygems\ssl_certs folder

Permission issues during Ruby install

You could try a different method to install Ruby. Checkout rbenv. Instructions:

  1. Install rbenv

     brew install rbenv ruby-build

  2. Add eval "$(rbenv init -)" to the end of your .bash_profile:

     echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile

  3. Install a version of ruby and set it to your local version:

     rbenv install 2.0.0-p647
 rbenv local 2.0.0-p647