VBdocman .NET 2.3 - An Automatic Generator of Technical Documentation for VB .NET Projects


1. OVERVIEW

VBdocman .NET is a program for the quick automatic generation of technical documentation from your Visual Basic .NET source code files. VBdocman parses the Visual Basic .NET source code and automatically creates the table of contents, index, topics, cross-references, and context sensitive help. The format of output documentation is fully configurable by user. VBdocman can also serve as very sophisticated comment editor.
The predefined output formats are:

  - Help 2 (the latest Microsoft help technology used in Visual Studio .NET)
  - HTML Help (*.chm file which looks like MSDN)
  - HTML files (with Java index and table of contents)
  - RTF document
  - XML

User is allowed to define his own format for any ASCII based document such
as LATEX, custom HTML and others.



2. HOW IT WORKS

VBdocman .NET works as an add-in with MS Visual Studio .NET. After invoking a simple dialog through main menu and (in the simplest case) clicking one button, the specified output documentation is generated. All interesting links such as Methods, Properties, Events, table of contents and index are created automatically. In large projects, VBdocman will save many days of boring tedious work. After VBdocman completes it's processing, the documentation can be edited, and additional descriptions can be added, e.g. See Also, Exceptions links, object, method, property or event description, parameters description, etc. VBdocman .NET can also extract that additional descriptions from the Visual Basic .NET source code comments when special tags are used.
It works similarly as JavaDoc system or C# XML documentation. But, user is not forced to write comments manually, VBdocman .NET adds it itself just by two mouse clicks. All necessary tags are added and then user fills in just short description to them. Solutions are also supported. In addition, VBdocman provides user-friendly comment editor. The types of information that can be extracted are as follows:

  - See Also links
  - Class, interface, structure, enumeration, namespace, method, property, event, delegate, variable or constant description
  - Parameters description
  - Settings description
  - Return value
  - Exceptions
  - Remarks
  - Example
  - Author
  - Version
  - Revision
  - Source code, declaration
  - User defined information



3. INSTALLATION

Before installing VBdocman uninstall any previous versions of VBdocman installed
on your computer. Then just unzip installation package and run installation MSI file. VBdocman will be
installed. After that it should be accessible in Visual Studio .NET IDE Add-Ins list. Detailed
help is also available.



4. UNINSTALLATION

Go to "Control Panel" -> "Add/Remove Programs" and select VBdocman .NET. All work
is done automatically.



5. TRIAL VERSION

Trial 14 day version of VBdocman comes without any limitations but
warning message is displayed every time a new documentation is compiled.



6. HOW TO REGISTER

Anyone may use this software during a trial period of 14 days.
Following this trial period of 14 days or less, if you wish to continue
to use VBdocman .NET, you MUST register (buy). When you buy VBdocman .NET, you become
registered user.

Registered users will obtain all future minor versions until the next major version of VBdocman .NET for FREE. The next major version is when the first version number increases.

You can register at http://www.vbdocman.com via secure connection using ShareIt! service.
ShareIt! is well-known, leading shareware registration company.
It is quick and easy. Usually, you will have the full version in a while.

We accept Mastercard/Eurocard, Visa, American Express, and Diner's Club online.
Alternatively, we support bank transfer/wire transfer, we accept Checks and Money Orders
through postal mail.

Immediately after the payment is accepted user receives e-mail with registration code. User can enter this code by pressing "REGISTER" button in main VBdocman dialog. If the code is valid, trial version becomes a full version immediately.

Please visit http://www.vbdocman.com/buy.htm.



7. CHANGES

In version 2.3
 1. Added support for generics in VS 2005. New <typeparam> tag introduced.
 2. Improved support for partial classes and structures in VS 2005.
 3. Added support for <System.ComponentModel.Description...> attribute. You can easily insert <Description...> attribute from context menu. If you add new comment, default summary is automatically extracted from <Description...> attribute if any. 
 4. Comment editor now remembers whether it is in WYSIWYG mode and its size and position. 
 5. Removed editing of parameter settings from comment editor because parameter settings represent old practice from VB6 and you should use enumerations instead. VBdocman however still recognizes <set> and @set tags in the comments. 
 6. FIX: <returns> tag is not added by "Add XML Comment" for Subs. 
 7. FIX: VBdocman didn't work with Web projects in VS 2005.
 8. FIX: When using Compile Solution or Compile Solution to One Documentation, some projects may have empty documentation. 
 9. FIX: Compiling help for Smart Device projects didn't work. 
10. FIX: Command "VBdocmanNET.Connect.CompileSolutionToOne" didn't work from command line. 
11. FIX: Wrong adding and reading of comments in VS 2005 when member has attribute. 


In version 2.2
 1. Added support for VS 2005. Generics are not supported yet.
 2. Added support for smart device projects.
 3. VBdocman now produces and recognizes C# XML links in cref attributes. Type character is prefixed, e.g. M: or T:, [] are used instead of () for array parameters, @ is appended to ByRef parameters and there are no spaces between parameters. This is needed for good compatibility with VS 2005.
 4. Help 2 documentation can be viewed with full formatting immediately after generation.
 5. Context menus are only visible on VB and macro files.
 6. "Compile to One Solution" button is disabled when there's only one project in the solution.
 7. FIXED: When there was an option checked to generate IntelliSense XML file, some formatting tags (<c>, <see>, ...) in <summary> and <param> tags were ignored in resulting documentation.
 8. FIXED: Problem with the tabs (scrolling) in Comment Editor. 

In version 2.1
 1. Fixed bug that caused problems with setting a list of .vb files that are to be documented. This problem especially occured when updating your project from VBdocman .NET version 1.x to version 2.0.

In version 2.0
 1. New formatting and objects added to comments - bold, italic, underline, text color, links, bulleted or numbered lists, tables and pictures.
 2. Support for more XML documentation tags added - <list>, <para>, <see> and <value>.
 3. Comment editor is WYSIWYG. Only XML comments are generated by editor but VBdocman still recognizes also @-style comments.
 4. Comment editor can be also modeless, floating and dockable.
 5. <value> tag replaces <returns> tag in properties. <returns> tag is still valid in property.
 6. You can specify folder with your own external files now. All external files will be automatically included in documentation and you can reference them from your comments e.g. in <see> or <img> tags. 
 7. Added possibility to comment root namespace. 
 8. In addition to random numeric names, generated files can have also pretty and constant names based on member name. So you can easily reference them from outside. 
 9. You can generate ONE documentation for whole solution . Namespaces and members are merged into one TOC. 
 10. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to VBdocman actions.
 11. Preview of Help 2 documentation can be seen immediately after it is generated, without restarting VS. 
 12. VBdocman project settings are stored in separate .vbdoc file instead of .vbproj file. This avoids conflicts when using version control systems (SourceSafe) or automated builds. Old settings stored in .vbproj files are still valid if no .vbdoc file exists. 
 13. Documentation now indicates if a member has ObsoleteAttribute or FlagsAttribute applied. 
 14. Newly added project item is automatically included in VBdocman's Compile | Files list. 
 15. Undo operation after inserting comment by comment editor is improved. You don't need to perform Undo several times to get original state. 
 16. Inheriting of XML comments is fixed. 
 17. Paths (e.g. output path) may contain foreign non-English characters now. 
 18. Fixed problem with attributes in declarations on overloads list page. 
 19. Problem with saving of title text. Newlines were removed from title text after reloading VS. Fixed. 
 20. Missing spaces between words in RTF output when comment is on multiple lines. Fixed. 
 21. Fixed commenting of namespaces when one namespace was specified in multiple files. Now you only need to comment the namespace in one file. 


In version 1.3
 1. Fixed problems with links to external files. There is new prefix ^ for link to external files
    in addition to " prefix. 

In version 1.2
 1. Command line functionality added.
 2. Conditional compilation of individual members added. You can select for each member if it will be compiled.
 3. HTML output has now modern look, fixed scroll bars in table of contents and pages have MSDN style also in
    non IE browsers.
 4. References in XML comments that were broken to several lines are processed correctly now.
 5. Comment editor doesn't wrap references in @-style comments so that they be processes correctly.
 6. Fixed some problems when editing parameter settings in comment editor.
 7. Fixed parsing of constant value in @set tag if it was string with spaces.
 8. Fixed parsing of references in @-style comments if references contain spaces (functions with several
    parameters delimited with comma and space).
 9. Fixed functionality of "Find interesting links" button in comment editor in VS .NET 2003.
 10. @includesource tag always returned non empty value even if there was no value. Fixed.

In version 1.1.1495
 1. Auto-find button added to atomatically find hxcomp.exe anytime.
 2. Fixed problem when not all source files in the project were recognized. This happened when they had same names but were in different folders.

In version 1.1
 1. Non-english character sets supported.
 2. Non-english Visual Studio .NET supported.
 3. Ability to remove line continuations in source code listings in documentation.
 4. Compilation progress dialog can be resized to better reading of messages.
 5. Some macros added to templates to allow translation of templates to other languages.
 6. Some problems with unrecognized comments fixed.
 7. Behavior of Apply button in Comment Editor fixed.
 8. $CHRn$ macro processing fixed.
 9. When using XML comments, <, >, &, ' and " characters are escaped automatically in the background within $CODE$ block.
 10. Processing of names of overloaded members is not case-sensitive now.
 11. Fixed problems with enumeration constants in VS 2003.


8. CONTACT

Home page and registration information: http://www.vbdocman.com

HELIXOFT
Tomasikova 14
080 01 Presov
Slovak Republic


Contact person:
Peter Macej
peter@vbdocman.com
peter@helixoft.com