Where can we submit documentation updates to Hex packages?

You can look that up on the packages infopage on hex.pm. If the author has put that piece of information into the mix file…

If its not there, you need to google.

Documentation for elixir applications is usually side by side with the sources. So you can find it the same way as you can find the answer to your first question.

There may be other kinds of documentation than only the generated API documentation, but that is specific to the package you use. And since it is non standard documentation, it may be otherwise sourcecontrolled or not at all.

@NobbZ already answered your second question in a lot of detail, but let me answer your first question in a little more detail:

There are two places where a package’s code repository can be specified in the mix.exs-file:

1. In the source_url key that project returns. This is actually read by ExDoc to automatically link to source files from within documentation files as well.
2. Inside the package.links key that project returns. Of course, any other project-related links can be put here too.

There is no hard dependency on GitHub at all; any repository location can be used.

Ommissions/unclarities or changes to the documentation are considered as implementation bugs by most Elixir developers, so they can be requested in the main project’s issue tracker.

Thank you for the response!

Ommissions/unclarities or changes to the documentation are considered as implementation bugs by most Elixir developers, so they can be requested in the main project’s issue tracker.

You can see how maddening it is to NOT have the link for that up-front and center. How hard would it modify ExDoc to read the links specified in the mix file and print that up in the top left-hand corner of each page?

Hex docs do already use the repo / website links if they are supplied. Try clicking on the package name in the sidebar or if a repo is supplied the “</>” links in each page (e.g. here). But they’re not required. People can even publish nothing online beside the package on hex. There’s no dependence on git / github or any form of online presence. You just need a local mix project and you can publish it to hex.

Ooof… I did not see that. the little “</>” icon is not doing it for me.

Of each page of where? Can you expand on where you expect these links to be and how we can improve the visibility of Elixir library documentation. I believed this was already fairly visible through links on hex.pm and github.com, so any guidance on improvements would be appreciated.

I would recommend using a word as the label. Symbols like “</>” are a nice bonus, but they aren’t always clear. I would recommend labeling that with a word. Like “Source” or “Issues”. Look at PHP’s packagist for comparison: guzzlehttp/guzzle - Packagist.org
It clearly has a searchable label for the git repo, one for source, one for issues etc. It’s much easier to read.

The corresponding page for your packagist link would be something like phoenix | Hex though. And the “Links” shown there are again based on what authors supply in their mix.exs.

Sorry, I need to ask you again to elaborate on what you expect for links, we use words such as “GitHub” and “Online Documentation” to direct people. The word choice is partly up to the maintainers of the packages and out of our control, but any guidance on improvement would be appreciated and hopefully we can improve the website and guide maintainers in the right direction for their link names.

When I go to ecto | Hex I find it easier to discover links to the repository and docs than I do on guzzlehttp/guzzle - Packagist.org. I am not a good judge though since I am used to the design and layout of hex.pm, so any suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated.

I recently contributed to ecto documentation and at first I was confused on how to contribute. This was my first time contributing.

When you go to the “Online Documentation” link, you are presented with a Web Site you assume you can modify or contribute to. Well, at least I did. I even ask someone in the ecto team how can i contribute but never got a response back.

So I wasn’t going to stop investigating how to do it and I found the “</>” button that took me to the Github source code of ecto. Even though I knew about ExDoc and how to document a module inside the same code file, I wasn’t aware that the hex.pm site was built with it.

I finally realized that I had to go the github PR way to contribute and did it.

So based on my experience I recommend you to add a simple “How to contribute to packages/documentation” section in the hex.pm site that will help new contributors. Maybe not experts. This simple section should explain how ExDocs works, what is the “</>” button for and the steps to follow to contribute to any package.

I understand that hex.pm is the package manager for Erlang ecosystem but seems so natural to be guided here on how to contribute to a open source project.

Sorry for the long story… Best regards