[Lazarus] Documentation update (CHM building, lazutils)

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

Marco van de Voort schrieb:
> On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 05:03:23AM +0100, Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:

>> I've just finished a first version of an documentation manager, which 
>> can create documentation projects for RTL, FCL, and any Lazarus 
>> packages. Main usage: quick creation of the final documentation, unit 
>> skeletons and update of existing XML doc files.
> 
> For user documentation or for the lazarus project? Those are not necessarily
> the same things.

For documentation writers, and for users which want to have their local 
or otherwise specialized (national...) documentation.


>> Since it's so overly complicated to interface such an application with 
>> the existing FPDoc tools (fpdoc, makeskel...), the next version will be 
>> much closer to Lazarus packages, using heavily modified versions of the 
>> fpc/utils/fpdoc/ units. The final project will become available in 
>> lazarus examples/docmgr (not to confuse with "dockmanager", for use by 
>> everybody :-)
>> [Recommendations for better directory/project names are welcome :-]
> 
> I think lowering the reliance on makefiles and shellscripts is a good thing.
> I'm already thinking about fixing the lpr in docs/html in time. But I first
> have to figure out if it is functional or not. If only because I'm slowly
> reaching the borders of my shellscript knowledge.

I don't understand why (platform specific) shell scripts shall be used 
for documentation purposes - is Pascal not suited for such tasks? ;-)

> But while I like that direction, currently for me it is more important to
> keep the lcl building lazarus free.  (that is no need for a updated build
> updated lazarus to build the docs, since I do it remotely on a server)

Building final documentation is not a special problem when project files 
are used, which can be generated and updated by e.g. my documentation 
manager - then FPDoc can do it all.


>>> I also commited a clenaed up version of the script I use to generate lcl.chm
>>> as "docs/html/build_lcl_chm.sh".
>> The documentation manager will eliminate the need for any scripts, in an 
>> platform independent way :-)
> 
> If that is at the expense of requiring a GUI system then IMHO it gets worse
> rather than better:-)

A GUI is not a requirement, it only simplifies the development of the 
desired functionality :-)

I consider to commit a first demo version of my documentation manager, 
to clarify how it looks and what it can do. Then everybody can see what 
parts can be made available in a commandline version, too.

DoDi