Style Guide
Next Tech supports GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) to help improve the readability of the instructions and the retention of information, concepts, and examples from readers. When styling instructions and tests it is important to keep your styling consistent, otherwise excess and erratic styling may cause readers some confusion.
Next Tech uses the following style guide when creating and customizing content (including tests):
- Always provide a file for the user's code, unless it is stated in the content to create a file. If the file is provided, be sure to include a comment. Here are a couple examples:
--- Write your code here
# Put your code on the line below
- The directory sidebar should only be enabled if the user needs to create their own files, or there are multiple files the user needs to click between.
- Titles and subtitles should always be title-cased.
- No first person language should be used.
- Lesson names should not contain markdown. For example:
if
should be IF - Step names should contain markdown. For example: IF should be
if
. - Filenames should be italic: index.html.
- References to other contents or courses should be italic: "Exploratory Data Analysis in R covers aspects of building KNN models briefly".
- Headers should be done with one #:
# Introduction
. - Program input / output text should be in bold if it's inline or in an unstyled code block if it's multi line:
Enter John Smith as input.
Enter the following as input:
Sherlock Holmes
Dr. Watson
- Inline code should be done with inline code:
This is some code
. - Multi line code should be in code blocks with the language specified to add syntax highlighting:
```cpp
some code
more code
* Values in instructions should be formatted in bold: "Assign the value of **57** to variable `x`".
* New concepts should be in **bold**.
* `iostream` \(and other built-in header files\) should be styled as code and not as a file name.
* Tables should be short and to the point and not overly large which can negatively impact the user's experience.
```text
Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3
---------|----------|---------
data | data | data
data | data | data
- If the data set is large, it should be included as either a file or image.
- Avoid run on paragraphs and sentences.
- Clear and correct punctuation.
- Transitions between steps and lessons should flow smoothly.
- Split up long blocks of text when possible.
- Links should be formatted with markdown. For example, [here](https://somewhere.com) vs https://somewhere.com.
- Images should be centered with no borders.
- Codey should only be used if there are heavily customized tasks. Visit Introduction to Python to see an example.
Last modified 2yr ago