DocProject for Sandcastle

DocProject

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DocProject drives the Sandcastle help generation tools using the power of Visual Studio 2005/2008 and MSBuild. Choose from various project templates that build compiled help version 1.x or 2.x for all project references. DocProject facilitates the administration and development of project documentation with Sandcastle, allowing you to use the integrated tools of Visual Studio to customize Sandcastle's output.

For screenshots, an overview and how to get started, see About DocProject.

For news about DocProject, among other programming-related topics, see Dave Sexton's blog at http://davesexton.com/blog.

For more information about Sandcastle, see Sandcastle Help.

Requirements

Please read the Latest Release Notes for important information and additional requirements before downloading and installing DocProject.

To have all of DocProject's features available, Visual Studio 2005/2008 Standard or higher is recommended but there is also support for Visual C# 2005/2008 Express and Visual Basic 2005/2008 Express editions as well.

Features

Create external XML documentation for all API topics in source and design mode	Filter topics using checkboxes in a tree view, by regular expression, or by API type and accessibility	Graphical user interface for configuring and building projects outside of Visual Studio
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Figure 1: Topic Management Dialog - XML Comments	Figure 2: Topic Management Dialog - Topic Filter	Figure 3: DocProject External UI

Edit shared content items in source and design mode	Easily build an AJAX-enabled ASP.NET documentation website	Automatically deploy build output to the local network or an FTP server
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Figure 4: Topic Designer	Figure 5: DocSite ASP.NET Web Application Example	Figure 6: Sandcastle/Deployment Plug-in

Automation
DocProject completely automates the process of building project documentation by examining your DocProjects and DocSites for references to other projects, building the documentation from their assembly output. You do not have to perform any manual steps for the build to work. Dependency information is taken from the project’s references automatically, so the documentation is built by simply building the project.

See also DocProject Templates, DocSite Templates, Build Process and DocProject External UI.

Integration
Having a Visual Studio project that builds compiled help for its project references makes building project documentation very flexible and easy. You have all of Visual Studio's IDE tools available to you, allowing you to customize the help with XML, HTML, icon and image editors. And with the DocSite templates, you can customize the default ASP.NET Web Application to fit your organization's particular needs.

See also DocProject Components.

Extensibility
DocProject is extensible, with plug-in support for custom build engines and an easy-to-use build process hook that is automatically set up for you when you create a new DocProject or DocSite. Modify the build process to your liking by handling build events in your favorite language: Visual C#, Visual J# or Visual Basic.

See also Build Process, Creating a Build Engine Provider and Sandcastle Deployment Plugin.

New Features in 1.11.0

• Compatibility with the Sandcastle May 2008 Release.
• Full support for both Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 using a single installer.
• Conceptual topics created in Topic Exporer are now saved with friendly file names and an .aml extension. A dependent companion file (.cmp) for storing metadata is created as well.
• The topic import feature has been improved and now supports the inclusion of raw HTML topics in Topic Exporer. Legacy MAML topics (those with an .xml extension) are automatically imported into the new format and, if possible, a friendly name is chosen automatically.
• An optional Import Topics and Settings wizard step has been added to the New Project Wizard. It allows for a single DocProject or DocSite file to be specified from which topics and settings will be imported into the new project automatically.
• Wildcard characters, including directory recursion (**\ - but only on the most nested directory) is now supported in various dialogs, including External sources.
• The External sources dialog is now available in the last step of the New Project Wizard.
• Automatic checkout of source-controlled project items occurs whenever a project option or dialog must write to a file in the project.