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+## to set up a project for documentation
+
+assuming we are using someproject:
+
+    sphinx-apidoc -o /PATH-TO/someproject/docs/source/ /PATH-TO/someproject/
+
+    sphinx-build -b html /PATH-TO/someproject/docs/source /PATH-TO/someproject/docs/build/html
+    
+    cd /PATH-TO/someproject/docs
+    make html
+
+/PATH-TO/someproject - contains all the source files that we are looking at
+/PATH-TO/someproject/docs - wherever the sphinx doc files, build, conf, etc are located
+/PATH-TO/someproject/docs/source - contains the SPHINX configuration info for how to read the source
+
+
+### when setting up sphinx for use with a django app
+
+if you get an error that looks like:
+    sphinx raise AppRegistryNotReady("Apps aren't loaded yet.") django.core.exceptions.AppRegistryNotReady: Apps aren't loaded yet.
+
+from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34461088/sphinx-apidoc-on-django-build-html-failure-on-django-core-exceptions-appregistr
+
+    import django
+    sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('..'))
+    os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'myproject.settings'
+    django.setup()
+
+what I did in the drfcryce project for apps.todos:
+
+    import os
+    import sys
+    import django
+    sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('../../../'))
+    sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('../../../../'))
+    
+    os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'drfcryce._settings.development'
+    django.setup()
+
+the first two sys.path fixes are to add the apps/todos to do the python path, and
+to add the drfcryce settings directory to the python path
+
+
+### to set up vim
+    let g:syntastic_rst_checkers=['sphinx']
+    let g:syntastic_rst_sphinx_source_dir="/path/to/docs/source" 
+    let g:syntastic_rst_sphinx_config_dir="/path/to/docs/source"
+
+the first path must lead to where ever index.rst is located
+the second path must lead to where ever conf.py is located
+