Installation instructions for developers are hard to find...

[cbielow]

Description of the documentation bug

When developers want to install OpenMS (C++ lib + TOPP) from source on their local hardware, the installation instructions are a bit hard to find.
When you start from https://github.com/OpenMS/OpenMS-docs/blob/develop/docs/manual/develop/developer-faq.md?plain=1#L13 you end up on ReadTheDocs, and in particular

you might end up here: https://openms.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manual/develop.html (generated from https://github.com/OpenMS/OpenMS-docs/blob/develop/docs/manual/develop.md), which says
See the documentation for the [latest release](https://abibuilder.cs.uni-tuebingen.de/archive/openms/Documentation/release/latest/html/index.html). but readers may simply miss that. It should explicitly say that these are the installation instructions to build OpenMS/TOPP from source!

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... or
2) by a bit more clicking you end up here https://openms.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manual/develop/developer-faq.html (which is generated from https://github.com/OpenMS/OpenMS-docs/blob/develop/docs/manual/develop/developer-faq.md).
However, this page says:

....
Build OpenMS by following the installation instructions or [from source](https://github.com/OpenMS/OpenMS-docs/blob/develop/about/installation.rst).
...

However, this is very bit confusing, since

• the link to https://github.com/OpenMS/OpenMS-docs/blob/develop/about/installation.rst is meant for the installation of the precompiled binaries (i.e. no modification of source code is possible).
• The link to install from source should point to https://openms.de/current_doxygen/html/index.html (where the user can find instructions for Win, Mac and Linux)
• the binary installation pages for Win, Linux, Mac on ReadTheDocs, e.g. https://openms.readthedocs.io/en/latest/about/installation/installation-on-windows.html should make it explicitly clear that these are the precompiled binaries for users, not developers and should provide a link back to https://openms.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manual/develop/developer-faq.html for developers.

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Note that links should not mention ReadTheDocs explicitly, but use internal references, e.g. see https://github.com/OpenMS/OpenMS-docs/blob/develop/docs/manual/develop/developer-faq.md?plain=1#L13 for the general idea.

Also, for external links to the Doxygen documentation, the link should point to https://openms.de/current_doxygen/... etc to make it more generic). In the past, we used links directly to https://abibuilder.cs.uni-tuebingen.de/archive/openms/Documentation/release/latest, which is essentially the same thing, but may change in the future).

OpenMS Installation

• Version: 3.3

[SIDDHARTH1-1CHAUHAN]

Hello @cbielow sir,

I have submitted a PR for #246 (Improve installation instructions on ReadTheDocs OpenMS/OpenMS#7867). Could you kindly assign this issue to me as well?

[SIDDHARTH1-1CHAUHAN]

I have created a pull request (#247 ) that addresses the requirements mentioned in issue #245. The installation instructions have been split into two files to better serve both general users and developers. Please review the changes and let me know if there are any further improvements needed.