| .. _notices: |
| |
| Notices: Notes, Cautions, Warnings, and Dangers |
| ############################################### |
| |
| We use four special types of notices: notes, cautions, warnings, and |
| dangers. Here are some specific rules and tips with regard to these |
| notices: |
| |
| * Do not use a notice directly after a heading. Notices must follow a |
| variant of body text. |
| * Avoid back-to-back notices. |
| * To improve readability, rewrite content to eliminate multiple |
| notices in a single module. |
| * If there is no clean way to avoid using back-to-back notices, use a |
| different style or multiple paragraphs, for example, combine two |
| notes into one or separate them with body text. |
| |
| Notes |
| ***** |
| |
| Use notes sparingly. Avoid having more than one note per subsection. If |
| you exceed this number consistently, consider rewriting the notes as |
| main body text. Example: |
| |
| .. note:: |
| A note is supposed to provide supplemental information, not |
| emphasized information. |
| |
| |
| |
| Cautions, Warnings, and Dangers |
| ******************************* |
| |
| Tell readers what will happen if they do not heed cautions or warnings, |
| circuits will fry, electrical shock may kill you, etc. |
| |
| * Use "Caution" to identify hazards resulting in property damage |
| accidents, including data loss. Also use "Caution" to alert against |
| unsafe practices. |
| * Use "Warning" and "Danger" for property damage accidents only if |
| personal injury risk appropriate to these levels is also involved. |
| |
| These are examples of typical notices, the correct syntax and the |
| conditions for their usage: |
| |
| .. note:: |
| Notes are ancillary bits of information, subordinate to the main |
| flow. Reserve the note tag for information that does not readily |
| flow with the main text but which you want to set apart for one |
| reason or another. Notes should be relatively short. If there is |
| more than enough information to warrant a short paragraph, |
| consider rewriting the note as body text. |
| |
| .. caution:: |
| Cautions are low-level hazard messages that alert the user of |
| possible equipment, product, and software damage, including loss |
| of data. Cautions typically appear as a yellow triangle with a |
| black exclamation point. |
| |
| .. warning:: |
| Warnings are mid-level hazards (more serious than cautions) that |
| are likely to cause product damage as well as bodily injury to |
| humans. Warnings may appear in a black triangle with orange hazard- |
| specific graphics for warnings (or with the colors reversed). The |
| most common warning is for electrical hazards, but there are many |
| other hazard-specific graphics. |
| |
| .. danger:: |
| Dangers are high-level hazards that are likely to cause product |
| damage as well as bodily injury and even death to humans. Dangers |
| use a red triangle with white (and black) hazard-specific |
| graphics, the same as found on warnings. |