# User guide and developer guide cannot be clicked and linked as distinct URL

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/user-guide-and-developer-guide-cannot-be-clicked-and-linked-as-distinct-url/14042>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [October 14, 2020, 8:04pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/user-guide-and-developer-guide-cannot-be-clicked-and-linked-as-distinct-url/14042 "2020-10-14T20:04:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![muratmaga](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/muratmaga/32/3622_2.png) [@muratmaga](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/muratmaga)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2020, 8:04pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/user-guide-and-developer-guide-cannot-be-clicked-and-linked-as-distinct-url/14042/1 "2020-10-14T20:04:19Z")

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On the read the docs page, I found it a bit awkward that I can not explicitly provide a URL for a **User Guide** for reference. Same for developer’s guide.

There are links for subsections (for example UI [https://slicer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user\_guide/user\_interface.html](https://slicer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user_guide/user_interface.html)), and of course the top level page ([https://slicer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html](https://slicer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html)) but not for User Guide itself.

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**Author:** ![pieper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/pieper/32/8_2.png) [@pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/pieper)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2020, 9:22pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/user-guide-and-developer-guide-cannot-be-clicked-and-linked-as-distinct-url/14042/2 "2020-10-14T21:22:14Z")

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Yes, that is odd. I guess something about readthedocs, but I don’t know if there’s a workaround (nothing obvious to me anyway).

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2020, 10:51pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/user-guide-and-developer-guide-cannot-be-clicked-and-linked-as-distinct-url/14042/3 "2020-10-14T22:51:10Z")

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Readthedocs shows documents. It cannot render a folder. If you add “User manual” and “Developer manual” pages (some kind of overview or introduction) then that can referred to.

You can experiment with making any changes and submit a pull request. Automatic tests of the pull request include full documentation generation, so you can check everything before the changes are merged.

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 4:16am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/user-guide-and-developer-guide-cannot-be-clicked-and-linked-as-distinct-url/14042/4 "2020-10-29T04:16:10Z")

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I’ve tried to create distinct links to the “User manual” and “Developer manual”. Readthedocs does not show multiple levels of the documentation in the navigation tree, unless the user manually opens a section (this could be probably changed by customizing the theme, but then we would need to keep maintaining it, so I would avoid that).

Therefore, creating user and developer subsections would make the navigation bar a bit less usable (it would only show two items, so users would always need to click to open a section before seeing more content). See preview here: [https://slicer--5280.org.readthedocs.build/en/5280/](https://slicer--5280.org.readthedocs.build/en/5280/)

Another option would be to keep “user guide” pages in a top-level section and just move the “developer guide” one level lower (essentially, we would have “Slicer documentation” and “Developer guide” section). See preview here: [https://slicer--5279.org.readthedocs.build/en/5279/](https://slicer--5279.org.readthedocs.build/en/5279/)

@muratmaga @pieper @jcfr What do you think? Which one do you like better?

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**Author:** ![muratmaga](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/muratmaga/32/3622_2.png) [@muratmaga](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/muratmaga)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 4:20am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/user-guide-and-developer-guide-cannot-be-clicked-and-linked-as-distinct-url/14042/5 "2020-10-29T04:20:53Z")

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My vote is for number 2.

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**Author:** ![pieper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/pieper/32/8_2.png) [@pieper](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/pieper)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 12:57pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/user-guide-and-developer-guide-cannot-be-clicked-and-linked-as-distinct-url/14042/6 "2020-10-29T12:57:06Z")

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I could live with either, but I also prefer the second one because it gives you more options so you are more likely to get what you need in fewer clicks.