DocProject

C# DocProject VB.NET DocProject C# DocSite VB.NET DocSite

Requirements | Features | Terminology | Plans | Development | Team | Help | Feedback

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DocProject drives the Sandcastle help generation tools using the power of Visual Studio 2005/2008 and MSBuild. Choose from various project templates that build compiled help version 1.x or 2.x for all project references. DocProject facilitates the administration and development of project documentation with Sandcastle, allowing you to use the integrated tools of Visual Studio to customize Sandcastle's output.

For screenshots, an overview and how to get started, see About DocProject.

For news about DocProject, among other programming-related topics, see Dave Sexton's blog at http://davesexton.com/blog.

For more information about Sandcastle, see Sandcastle Help.

Requirements

Please read the Latest Release Notes for important information and additional requirements before downloading and installing DocProject.

To have all of DocProject's features available, Visual Studio 2005/2008 Standard or higher is recommended but there is also support for Visual C# 2005/2008 Express and Visual Basic 2005/2008 Express editions as well.

Features

Create external XML documentation for all API topics in source and design modeFilter topics using checkboxes in a tree view, by regular expression, or by API type and accessibilityGraphical user interface for configuring and building projects outside of Visual Studio
Topic DesignerTopic Management DialogExternal UI
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Figure 1: Topic Management Dialog - XML CommentsFigure 2: Topic Management Dialog - Topic FilterFigure 3: DocProject External UI


Edit shared content items in source and design modeEasily build an AJAX-enabled ASP.NET documentation websiteAutomatically deploy build output to the local network or an FTP server
Topic DesignerDocSite ASP.NET Web Application ExampleSandcaste/Deployment Plug-in
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Figure 4: Topic DesignerFigure 5: DocSite ASP.NET Web Application ExampleFigure 6: Sandcastle/Deployment Plug-in


Automation
DocProject completely automates the process of building project documentation by examining your DocProjects and DocSites for references to other projects, building the documentation from their assembly output. You do not have to perform any manual steps for the build to work. Dependency information is taken from the project’s references automatically, so the documentation is built by simply building the project.

See also DocProject Templates, DocSite Templates, Build Process and DocProject External UI.

Integration
Having a Visual Studio project that builds compiled help for its project references makes building project documentation very flexible and easy. You have all of Visual Studio's IDE tools available to you, allowing you to customize the help with XML, HTML, icon and image editors. And with the DocSite templates, you can customize the default ASP.NET Web Application to fit your organization's particular needs.

See also DocProject Components.

Extensibility
DocProject is extensible, with plug-in support for custom build engines and an easy-to-use build process hook that is automatically set up for you when you create a new DocProject or DocSite. Modify the build process to your liking by handling build events in your favorite language: Visual C#, Visual J# or Visual Basic.

See also Build Process, Creating a Build Engine Provider and Sandcastle Deployment Plugin.

New Features in 1.11.0 New Features in 1.10.1 New Features in 1.10.0 New Features in 1.9.0 New Features in 1.8.0 New Features in 1.7.0 New Features in 1.6.2 New Features in 1.6.1 New Features in 1.6.0 New Features in 1.5.0 New Features in 1.4.0 New Features in 1.3.0 Previous Updates

Terminology

DocProject usually refers to the collective purpose of DocProject's Visual Studio Project Templates and Visual Studio Add-In. In certain contexts, however, DocProject may refer solely to the Add-In, which is technically the actual "software" and the guts of DocProject.

DocProjects are Visual Studio projects based on a DocProject Template.
DocSites are Visual Studio projects based on a DocSite Template.

Plans

DocProject is an ongoing effort, which requires collaboration, feedback and support from the community. Please use the Forums and Issue Tracker to provide us with your questions and valuable comments so that we can develop DocProject into an asset for Visual Studio users.

In the future we hope to:

Development

DocProject has been and will continue to be developed using the C# language, exclusively.

Team

If you're interested in joining the DocProject team then please contact Dave Sexton. Don't forget to specify your desired role and to include some information about your competencies for that role. You may want to also briefly include your motivation for becoming a DocProject team member.

Help

In the How To... wiki there is guidance for performing common tasks associated with DocProject and Sandcastle, such as installation, configuration, usage and tutorials.

Here are some links to get you started:

Installation, Configuration and Uninstallation Using DocProject Tutorials

Feedback

Use the Discussions tab to submit questions and comments pertaining to DocProject. Please use the Issue Tracker tab to submit bug information and feature requests.

If you have questions related to the licensing of DocProject, or any concerns that you wish to keep private, please contact Dave Sexton.