Both Pro and Enterprise editions of GhostDoc in version 5 introduce Documentation Quality hints in Visual Studio editor; Documentation Management assistance – find auto-generated comments, edit or remove the bulk created docs; identify and fix comments that are missing, out of sync or can be copied from base class; mark generated XML comments as auto-generated and “to be edited”. The v5 also includes multiple Help documentation themes and layouts to choose from.
The free version of GhostDoc has been re-branded as GhostDoc Community Edition and adds general improvements, limited generation of CHM help documentation as well as the means to find auto-generated comments.
The new menu commands
- Documentation Quality Hints in Visual Studio editor
- Documentation Maintenance – Find auto-generated comments – edit or remove the bulk created docs
- Documentation Maintenance – Identify and fix comments that are missing, out of sync or can be copied from base class
- Theme support for generated help documentation and new themes – Flat Gray and Flat Main
- Official Visual Studio 2015 support
- Options to add Auto-generated doc and TODO ‘Edit’ attributes
- Option to have the default summary text focused and selected when using Document This command – allows to edit/override the summary quickly
- Exclude from Documentation action ? marks a member with a tag to exclude it from the help documentation
- Hide/Show Comments feature ? an easy way to expand/collapse documentation comments to minimize the XML Comments footprint in the Visual Studio code editor
- New Summary Override table in Options – configure predefined summaries for specific member or type names instead of auto-generated
- A basic Build Documentation feature is now available in the Community Edition of GhostDoc ? while quite limited and watermarked, yet allows to produce simple CHM help documentation for personal use without paying for the commercial version
For the detailed list of v5.0 changes see What?s New in GhostDoc v5.
To see new features by product edition see this page – http://submain.com/ghostdoc/editions/
Documentation Quality Hints
This new feature provides real-time visual hints in the Visual Studio Editor window to highlight members which have documentation issues that require attention.
The following documentation hint actions included with this release make it very easy to maintain the documentation quality:
Documentation Maintenance
This feature will help you identify missing documentation, find auto-generated XML comments, maintain your documentation, and keep it up to date. Once these are found, GhostDoc provides the tools to edit or remove the bulk created docs, add missing or fix the dated documentation ? one by one or as a batch. You can fine tune the search criteria and use your own template library if yours is different from the built-in.
- Find auto-generated docs and edit or remove them
- Find and fix members that are missing documentation
- Discover members that have parameters, return types, and type parameters out of sync with the existing XML comments and fix the comments
- Find members that can have XML docs copied from the base class
- Find documentation that require editing
The Community Edition only allows to find auto-generated documentation and not batch actions ? only one action at a time.
Help Documentation Themes
In the v5 we are introducing theme support for the generated help documentation and including two new themes, The old help doc view preserved as the Classic theme. You can see the new theme preview here – Flat Gray (default) and Flat Main.
The Enterprise Edition users can modify the existing themes or create and deploy own help documentation themes ? now easier than ever!
The Community Edition theme selection is limited to one ? Classic.
Auto-generated doc and TODO ‘Edit’ attributes
The option to add
The option to add a TODO comment ?TODO Edit XML Comment Template for {member name}? which in turn adds a TODO task into the Visual Studio Task List ?> Comments as a reminder for the auto-generated comment requires editing.
Both flags can be used as additional criteria for the documentation quality hints and documentation management ?Find auto-generated Documentation? feature. When generating help documentation these flags are also accounted for ? the flagged members can be included, ignored or highlighted in the final docs.
Summary Override
The Summary Override table allows to configure predefined summaries for specific member or type names to be used instead of the auto-generated. We ship some predefined summary overrides and you are welcome to add your own. If you find a summary override that the GhostDoc user community can benefit of, please submit it to us to be reviewed for the inclusion.
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How do I try it?
Download the v5.0 at http://submain.com/download/ghostdoc/
Feedback is what keeps us going!
Let us know what you think of the new version here – http://submain.com/support/feedback/
Note to the GhostDoc Pro v4 users: The v4.x license codes won’t work with the v5.0. For users with License Protection and active Software Assurance subscription we have sent out the v5.x license codes. If you have not received or misplaced your new license, you can retrieve it on the My Account page. Users without the License Protection or with expired Software Assurance subscription will need to purchase the new version – currently we are not offering upgrade path other than the Software Assurance subscription. For information about the upgrade protection see our Software Assurance and Support – Renewal / Reinstatement Terms