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How to Write a MoveIt Tutorial

This guide explains how to write tutorials for the MoveIt documentation. Tutorials are one of the most useful contributions you can make because they are the first thing many new users see. This guide is intended for any contributor who wants to submit a new tutorial. There are many additional quality standards and how-tos for contributing to the tutorials located in this repository’s README.

Learning Objectives

  • The type of information that should be included in a tutorial.

  • Proper formatting for tutorials in the MoveIt documentation section.

Requirements

  • Ubuntu 20.04

  • ROS 2 Galactic

  • MoveIt 2

Steps

  1. Fork the MoveIt 2 Tutorials repository and start a new branch with an intuitive name (e.g., jack/how-to-tutorials).

  2. Create a new file in the doc/tutorials directory with a .rst extension. The title should be a concise description (e.g., “MoveIt Quickstart in RViz”).

  3. Add a link to your tutorial on the tutorials page.

  4. Write the introduction using reStructuredText (.rst) using the following guidelines:

    • The introduction should explain the purpose of this tutorial and the intended audience.

    • If you think people may regularly find this particular guide by mistake, add links to the proper resource.

  5. Write the specific learning objectives (i.e., what will the reader know when they finish reading this tutorial).

  6. Add any system or equipment requirements for this tutorial so users know if this tutorial is appropriate for them.

  7. Layout the interactive steps to be followed with enough details that the reader can easily follow along.

  8. Write a conclusion to summarize the tutorial and provide additional resources.

  9. Add a link to the next tutorial the reader should follow.

  10. Submit the new page as a PR to the MoveIt 2 Tutorials repository.

Template

<Title>
-------

<Brief description of the tutorial with image showing what will be accomplished.>

Background
----------

<Explanation of what the user should have already done before this tutorial.>

Steps
-----

1. <First Step>
---------------

<This should describe an action that the user should take such as creating a ROS project or typing up some code.>

1.1) <Explanation First Step>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

<Use sub-steps like this to walk the user through an explanation of what they did.>

1.2) <Action First step>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

<Use a sub-step like this to describe running the new code and what the results should be.>

2. <Second Step>
----------------

<...>

Conclusion
----------

<Here is where you explain what the user has read and provide additional references.>

Next Step
---------

<Link to the next tutorial here.>

Further Reading