FB docs

[lillo]

Yet another reason why QB was so great and easy to use was its online help system inside the IDE.
Once FB is finalized enough, docs will have to be started; what if we use a common format from which to generate the same docs in different formats? Simple TXT, RTF or HTML come to mind. The Allegro library uses this approach with its own makedoc utility; I propose we write our own. The "source" docs could use XML syntax, or whatever we think is easier to write.
If it is written well enough, this tool could also generate docs for IDEs to use, ala QB...

[Sterling Christensen]

I agree.

Here's all the discussion on documentation that I can find with a simple search for the word "documentation" in the FreeBASIC section, in rough chronological order:
For all the Documentatiaholics (Nov 14)
Documentatering (Dec 2)
Son of Documentato vs. MechaDocumentato (Dec 10)
Documentiomanary Wiki (Dec 12)
All About FreeBasic Documentation (Dec 22)
Unless I missed something I think that bring you up to date on FB documentation. You only really need to read the last one that has a link to a sourceforge project Jofers set up - the other threads are mostly brainstorming/speculation.

[adosorken]

I began my own documentation for my IDE project, since waiting around for some kind of standardized format was becoming too much of a wait.

[Z!re]

You're all talking about a standardized doc format, and noone can agree on one.

So, all stfu, and go with bbcode, it's all you need, it's easy to parse, and everyone knows it.

There, happy?

[Nexinarus]

I've been writing docs for about a month now, in my own doc creater with a simple "bb-code" like format. Most of the doc creater is finished and about 1/6 of the commands are documented.

[adosorken]

My doc creator is Notepad. My format is HTML. To anyone who whines: I don't see YOU doing anything, so shup.

[Dean]

Absolutely. I've been using PDS 7.1 for years and I love
the IDE with the built in help with details and examples.
Since most of the FB functions are similar to QB, why don't
we start by taking the QB help file and copying it in the FBIDE? Theoretically, the same examples should produce the same
results in most cases, and it's already done.

:bounce:

[quinn]

That would most likely be a violation of Microsoft's copyright.

Anyhow, if any unified effort to pick a format develops, I would suggest docbook sgml? It's similar to HTML and can be converted into all sorts of other formats. (html, pdf, UNIX man/infopage, Windows CHM, etc)

Wikipedia has some nice info on it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook

[The Car]

I don't know if this has been inferred, but in case it hasn't..

One of the things I enjoyed about QB (and VB, VC, ...) is the ability to hit F1 when the cursor is over a keyword/function to bring up [context sensitive] help.

It would also be handy to have doc modules that do the same for opengl, etc. for easy reference, so you could hit F1 over say, glRotatef if you forget what it does. (Ok, bad example =)

Or do you guys think this is overkill?

[adosorken]

I don't know if this has been inferred, but in case it hasn't..

One of the things I enjoyed about QB (and VB, VC, ...) is the ability to hit F1 when the cursor is over a keyword/function to bring up [context sensitive] help.

It would also be handy to have doc modules that do the same for opengl, etc. for easy reference, so you could hit F1 over say, glRotatef if you forget what it does. (Ok, bad example =)

Or do you guys think this is overkill?

I've already got that set to go in my own IDE. By the way, what took you so long to get here?