sphinx-doc/sphinx

Theme developers should be able to configure sphinx to trigger rebuilds based on theme changes

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#2835 opened on Aug 8, 2016

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Description

If I am editing a theme, Sphinx does not trigger rebuilds based on theme changes; I have to do make clean and make html again, which can take quite a bit of time for a large document tree.

It would be helpful if, while editing theme elements, if I could configure Sphinx in a mode where it would "do the right thing":

  • if just .css and static elements have changed, then just copy these files to the build output
  • if theme templates have changed, then all the output files need to be re-rendered

see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38794431/how-to-use-sphinx-build-when-developing-a-theme-sphinx-doesnt-seem-to-recogni

Contributor guide

Tech stack
python
Domain
documentation
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
PythonSphinx internals
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
40
Research direction
The issue requests that Sphinx automatically rebuilds when theme files (CSS, static, templates) change instead of requiring a full clean build. To implement, one would need to explore Sphinx's builder file monitoring mechanism, likely in the sphinx.builders module, and add configuration options for theme developers to specify which file types should trigger a full rebuild vs. a copy. The existing behavior can be observed via sphinx build with the W flag; the goal is to add incremental rebuild logic similar to other static site generators.