Creating documentation for our project

Creating documentation for our project

• Carter Medlin

  Any chance Microsoft might release their documentation tool Maybe open source it like they did with WIX It sure would be nice to have...
  
  Especially since ndoc is not available for VS 2005 yet for any language - and may not be ready soon - http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php thread_id=8415964&forum_id=38707
  
  thanks - dave
  
  

• Scott Brady

  Hello;
  
  I am generating the xml file. But I want to generate a chm file and the v h (VisualStudio integrated help) files too. Is there a way to do that
  
  thanks - dave
  
  

• lalbertoth

  Hello;
  
  Your url is not legit and I tried to google sandcastle with no luck. Do you have another url
  
  thanks - dave
  
  

• csqepaul

  Hi,
  Really sorry for the confusion. Above URL is surely not going to work for you.
  PLease try nDOC from http://ndoc.sourceforge.net/. This tool is one of the recommended ten tools by James Avery. Refer http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/07/MustHaveTools/default.aspx for more.
  
  Hope it helps.
  Thanks
  
  

• Toldin

  Hi,
  Have you already tried http://sandcastle  This is the too l to serve your purpose.
  
  Thanks.
  
  

• plgoldman

  Hi David,
  Unfortunately i am not aware of any such tool for J#. I tried to find out if there is any such tool other than nDoc, but no luck :(. The tool which we use for this purpose in Microsoft (it works perfectly for J#),  is not shipped outside.
  
  Let us see if there is any workaround to use nDoc for J# also. We will keep you updated.
  Sorry for all the pain you are going through.
  
  Thanks.
  
  

• Chickenwing

  Hi;
  
  The biggest problem with ndoc is it won't work with VS 2005/.net 2.0 at all - not just J# but even C# fails.
  
  But in VS 2003 it won't create the xml file for the documentation for J#.
  
  So I am using ndoc right now, but by creating a dummy J# project in VS 2003 and using the xml file generated by VS 2005. However, it shows only some of the documentation - very weird in that some methods show all documentation while others are missing the return and/or the description and/or the parameter description.
  
  So at present I can't find a good solution. If you know of one - that would be very very helpful.
  
  thanks - dave
  
  

• vistalad

  Oops, i must be sleeping while writing above post. You have already tried nDoc and i have pointed you to same tool :(.Please apologize me.
  Let us find out if there is any tool available which understands J# doc files format.
  We will get back to you soon.
  
  Thanks.
  
  

• Rahul Nadkarni

  Dave,

  Microsoft released documentation compilers for managed class libraries in July. The website for Sandcastle is http://www.sandcastledocs.com.

  The September CTP technical refresh version for Sandcastle is now available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx FamilyId=E82EA71D-DA89-42EE-A715-696E3A4873B2&displaylang=en.

  Please visit http://blogs.msdn.com/sandcastle/ for what's new in this version. I will also post a blog on how to generate CHM/HXS/XML using this version. Cheers.

  Anand..

  
  
  

• xdd

  Hi,
  You can generate documentation for your APIs using visual studio. Anything written as java style comments before body of your API, will be spitted in a XML file.
  
  For enabling this feature in J#...
  
  1. Right click on Project node in Solution explorer.
  2. Click on Properties.
  3. Project designer opens in the editor.
  4. Select the build Tab from there.
  5. Check the "XML Documentation File" property.
  6. If you dont like the default path then change it too :).
  
  Build your project and check the path you have opted for in step 6. You will get an XML file with all your java doc comments spitted there.
  
  Suppose you have following code in your file...
  
  package ConsoleApplication1;
  
  /**
     * Summary description for Program
     */

  public class Program
  {
     public static void main(String[] args)
     {
        //
        // TODO: Add code to start application here
        //
     }

  }
  

  In the code there is only one Doc Comment, written before "Program" Class.
  Following XML file is generated for this code snippet...
  
  < xml version="1.0" >
  <doc>
      <assembly>
          <name>ConsoleApplication1</name>
      </assembly>
      <members>
  <member name="T:ConsoleApplication1.Program">
  <remarks>Summary description for Program</remarks>
          </member>
      </members>
  </doc>
  
  Please note that this feature works on project basis. If you have multi project solution then you have to enable this feature for each project one by one.
  
  Another point to note is that J# supports this feature through Visual Studio IDE only. This is not supported through command line. Please refer this post for more.
  If this is something which blocks you then please chime few words requesting this feature here. That way we will have good no of users asking for this feature.
  
  Thanks.
  
  
  

  
  
  
• Creating documentation for our project