let's get acquainted

Each development, if it is a little more poetic than the print of the “hello world”, requires documentation. And somehow it turned out that I was starting to write documentation and all the time I came across the fact that I was uncomfortable:


Documentation in MS Word (Open Office) does not have code highlighting; it keeps everything in one long document; you cannot put it into the version control system to track changes. Such a document is impossible without unnecessary difficulties to save in the html-code that will be posted on the site.


Microsoft HTML Help Compiler allows you to store everything in the text, but does not have syntax highlighting, you cannot assemble a document into linked html pages for uploading to a site without an active-x component.
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The Docbook format is also close to what you want, but XSLT transformations are complex, syntax highlighting is solvable, but a problem.

PHPDocumentator aims to write documentation in the form of comments to the code. Yes, it supports the connection of several pages of clean documentation to what happened (it seems that it is called the term “tutorial” there). BullDoc aims to write documentation in its pure form - in the form of a book. A neat normal book with chapters, sections, table of contents and index. What comes out of the output from PHPDoc is a working tool, not the documentation for the final user.

As a result, a small documentation script appeared, which was brushed, documented and offered to the public.


it looks like the documentation



Like any program, honed under the qualitative performance of a specific task, BullDoc has clear objectives:

1. The structure of the book (table of contents) is formed using a file in a simple and popular format YAML
2. Pages should be stored in folders according to the structure of the book.
3. The content of the pages is html text that can be opened directly in the browser.
4. The text of the pages may contain special tags for links to pages from the table of contents.
5. Page text may contain special tags for syntax highlighting.
6. To insert a picture, just put it next to the text file of the page, and in the text insert a regular image tag with the attribute src = 'myimage.jpg' or src = 'myimages / myimage.jpg'
7. The system for the page forms the menu of the current level with links to sections above the hierarchy. For example, for an article Hobbies / outdoors / fishing / spinners, the menu will contain adjacent articles (hooks, fishing lines, rods, etc.), and links to the parent sections: "home", "hobby", "outdoors "And" fishing. Forward and back links are formed.
8. Must be subject index. Keywords are assigned using a special tag, on the basis of which the “Subject Index” page is automatically formed.

A complete list of system characteristics can be found on the program website.

TOC file in YAML format

How can I use BullDoc?

The program works in two qualities - as a web application running the Apache web server, or as a console application from the command line. In the first case, you can watch the results of your editing without collecting the project in static files, edit texts via the web interface. And from the command line you collect already written help in a form ready for use by end users (static HTML or CHM).

Many programmers have blogs. In blogs we write a lot of different things - from short messages, like “How do you want a beer” to articles in several parts with a prologue and an epilogue. We try to keep our records categorized with tags. The blog is good because you can put an interesting idea there, which has not yet taken shape in the form of a full-fledged article. However, you often want to combine several posts into one when the thought is formed. It is terrible to think, but someday from our blog could get a real book. Perhaps this will help you BullDoc.


web editing

Where to get?

www.bulldoc.ru
Tasks, objectives and features of the program
FAQ
Step by step example
Documentation
Download

For developers:
GoogleCode project
SVN repository

subject index