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Q & A
VBDOX - Visual Basic Documentation Generator
Q & A
- What happens when there are conditional compilation statements in the Visual Basic project processed?
- Why my XML comments do not appear in the report?
- Is it possible to change the list of classes that appear in the report? Can I write my own report?
- Can I write my own report?
- Why does my documentation comment for the first declaration in the file appear as module description in the report?
- Which Visual Basic features are unsupported?
- Is there any facility to embed the Form Graphics in to the DOC file?
- I was wondering if there is a way to change the default directory when the HTML is genereated?
- When printing the document, how one can print also the frames in class diagramm?
- Source code?
A Currently (Version 0.0.21) the conditional compilation is not handled. The result Is that all declaration are processed. If there are duplicated declarations only the first occurrences appear in the report.
<< back to topQ Why my XML comments do not appear in the report?
A If your VBDOX version is less than 1.1.xx then this is because these types of comments were intended only for XML report/Export.
Starting with version 1.1.xx XML comments written in the format (schema) shown in the HOWTO pages are parsed and can be used with the report managers other than XML report manager.
Note again that not any XML comment can be used for parsing.
<< back to topQ Is it possible to change the list of classes that appear in the report?
A No. Only the standard report allows selecting whether to include all or only the public classes.
<< back to topA Yes, if you want. Since version 1.0.34 you don't need the sources of VBDOX.
New reoprt managers and documentation comment parsers can be easily created and used from VBDOX. Both are realized as external ActiveX (COM) components. Actually also the distributed report managers and documentation parsers are external. They are contained in VBDOXEXT. How to create your own? See developer site.
The easiest way to make your own report is to make a XSLT on the XML export generated by the program.
<< back to topA The first documentation comment in the module is always considered module level. Because of this it is required to have module level documentation comment.
<< back to topQ Which Visual Basic features are unsupported?
A Currently, as I know, unsupported are:
- Conditional compilation (see Q1);
- DefXXX declaration;
- Option Module Private;
- Functions returning arrays (Versions before 1.1.xx).
Please inform me if you find some other unsupported Visual Basic feature (contact).
<< back to topQ Is there any facility to embed the Form Graphics in to the DOC file?
Anand ZadbukeA It's possible to read the information about the form from the .FRM file and try to reconstruct the form layout, but often this layout is only design-time layout and doesn't present the real run-time state. There is also an additional problem with unknown ActiveX controls and the binary data stored in the accompanying .FRX file. So it's not always a good choice to try to recreate the form from the source files.
The only possible, and I think better, solution is to include the IMG tags into the documentation comments where necessary. For example, if you need an image of the form in the form overview file generated by vbdox:
- create an snapshot of the form;
- include something like this in the module comment
<IMG src="my_form_snapshot.jpeg"/>, where needed - and assure the path to the image source file is correct.
Q I was wondering if there is a way to change the default directory when the HTML is genereated?
Scott BerresA VBDOX versions before 1.1.xx do not allow to change the folder in which the generated files are stored. The documentation is stored in a VBDOX subdirectory of the opened project or file.
<< back to topPerttu Sipilä
A The style-sheets used in the reports are the original Microsoft style-sheets used in the MSDN. It appears that the print of the Internet Explorer has problems printing pages as they appear in the browser itself. I hope they will fix this. It's also possible to change the style-sheet of the documentation. It's all up to you.
<< back to topA It's freely available. See source code.
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