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jarn.viewdoc

Python documentation viewer

viewdoc is a Python package documentation viewer. It converts reST-formatted text to HTML and displays it in a browser window. The viewer is typically used to check a package’s long description before uploading it to PyPI.

Contents

Installation

viewdoc works with Python >= 3.8 and all recent versions of setuptools.

Use pip install jarn.viewdoc to install the viewdoc script.

Since version 3.0 viewdoc uses PEP420 namespace packages. Please upgrade all jarn.* packages.

Usage

viewdoc [options] [rst-file|egg-dir]

Options

-s style, --style=style, or --style

Select the custom style added to the HTML output.

-b browser, --browser=browser

Select the browser used for display. For a list of names see the webbrowser module.

-c config-file, --config-file=config-file

Use config-file instead of the default ~/.viewdoc.

-l, --list-styles

List available styles and exit.

-h, --help

Print the help message and exit.

-v, --version

Print the version string and exit.

--no-color

Disable output colors.

--no-browser

Print HTML to stdout.

Arguments

rst-file

The reST file to view.

egg-dir

The Python package whose long description to view. Defaults to the current working directory.

Configuration

viewdoc reads style information from its configuration file ~/.viewdoc. Edit this file to add your own styles.

Built-in Styles

plain

Browser default with margins.

pypi

New PyPI style with Google Fonts.

sans

PyPI-like style without Google Fonts (the default).

Changelog

3.1 - 2026-09-19

  • Replace blessed with termcolor. This avoids the XTGETTCAP terminal capability queries that show up as garbage in terminals that don’t support DCS queries, notably under tox. [stefan]

  • Honor the NO_COLOR convention instead of the JARN_NO_COLOR environment variable. [stefan]

3.0 - 2026-04-17

  • Support Python 3.8 - 3.14. [stefan]

  • Support setuptools >= 80.0.0. [stefan]

  • Switch to PEP420 namespace packages. Please upgrade all jarn.* packages. [stefan]

  • Replace pkg_resources with importlib.metadata. [stefan]

  • Remove deprecated license classifier. [stefan]

2.7 - 2023-09-23

  • Support Python 2.7 - 3.12. [stefan]

  • Update tox.ini for latest tox. [stefan]

  • Filter deprecated config warning. [stefan]

  • Fix invalid escape sequences. [stefan]

  • Fix tests for docutils >= 0.20.0. [stefan]

2.6 - 2023-01-21

  • Support setuptools >= 65.6.0. [stefan]

2.5 - 2022-11-13

  • Support Python 2.7 - 3.11. [stefan]

  • Do not require setup.py or setup.cfg if pyproject.toml exists. [stefan]

  • Filter some deprecation warnings. [stefan]

  • Warn if long_description metadata is missing. [stefan]

2.4 - 2022-02-26

  • Support Python 2.7 - 3.10. [stefan]

  • Fix code block background color in pypi style. [stefan]

  • Keep links underlined in pypi style. [stefan]

  • Add output colors. [stefan]

  • Do not require setup.py if setup.cfg exists. [stefan]

  • Move metadata to setup.cfg. [stefan]

  • Move tests out of jarn.viewdoc namespace. [stefan]

  • Include tests in sdist but not in wheel. [stefan]

2.3 - 2019-01-28

  • Support python -m jarn.viewdoc. [stefan]

2.2 - 2019-01-25

  • Drop Python 2.6 support, add Python 3.7. [stefan]

  • Update styles in light of new PyPI (warehouse). [stefan]

  • Default to sans style because new PyPI uses Google Fonts. [stefan]

  • Convert dashes to underscores in config parser optionxform. [stefan]

2.1 - 2017-10-06

  • Add MANIFEST.in. [stefan]

2.0 - 2017-07-20

  • Update pypi stylesheet (grey code blocks). [stefan]

  • Automatically upgrade stylesheet information. [stefan]

  • Add -b option to specify the browser to use. [stefan]

  • Protect against bad or incomplete locale settings. [stefan]

1.8 - 2017-01-30

  • Support Python 2.6 - 3.6 without 2to3. [stefan]

1.7 - 2014-03-22

  • Update PyPI stylesheet links in the face of new python.org. [stefan]

  • Add new pypi style and rename previous one to classic. [stefan]

1.6 - 2013-11-21

  • Support Python 3.x. [stefan]

1.5 - 2012-07-11

  • Restore Python 2.5 compatibility. [stefan]

1.4 - 2011-11-25

  • Warn if ~/.viewdoc has errors instead of raising an exception. [stefan]

1.3 - 2011-10-31

  • Be more careful with what we put on the PYTHONPATH. [stefan]

  • Add small style to the default config. [stefan]

1.2 - 2011-07-19

  • Pass the PYTHONPATH to subprocesses. [stefan]

  • Avoid temp file when extracting the long description. [stefan]

  • Add -l option to list available styles. [stefan]

  • Add –style shortcut for -s style. [stefan]

1.1 - 2011-02-08

  • Add -s option to select styles on the command line. [stefan]

  • In pypi style, only underline reference links. [stefan]

1.0 - 2010-12-30

  • Initial release [stefan]

Release files for jarn.viewdoc 3.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

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Source distribution for jarn.viewdoc 3.1
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