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authorLars Thorsen <[email protected]>2011-11-16 15:10:18 +0100
committerLars Thorsen <[email protected]>2011-11-18 14:28:43 +0100
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[erl_docgen] Move files from docbuilder to erl_docgen
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="latin1" ?>
+<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">
+
+<chapter>
+ <header>
+ <copyright>
+ <year>1997</year><year>2009</year>
+ <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
+ </copyright>
+ <legalnotice>
+ The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
+ Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
+ compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the
+ Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be
+ retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/.
+
+ Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
+ basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
+ the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
+ under the License.
+
+ </legalnotice>
+ <title>Overview</title>
+ <prepared></prepared>
+ <docno></docno>
+ <date></date>
+ <rev></rev>
+ <file>overview.xml</file>
+ </header>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Background</title>
+
+ <p>DocBuilder has been used within the OTP project to generate
+ documentation for Erlang/OTP itself for more than ten years.
+ It has now been released as a regular Erlang/OTP application.</p>
+
+ <p>The intention with DocBuilder is that it should be as easy to
+ use and maintain as possible and generate adequate documentation
+ for OTP's needs. It uses frames, which can probably be regarded as
+ old-fashioned today. Hopefully, this should be improved in
+ the future.</p>
+
+ <p>Originally, DocBuilder input was SGML files and external tools
+ was used for parsing. The internal version used in the OTP
+ project can generate not only HTML code but also LaTeX (for PDF
+ and PostScript) and nroff (for UNIX man pages). (Again, using
+ external tools). Because of this, the parsed source code is
+ transformed into a tree structure before being transformed again
+ into the desired format.</p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>DTD Suite</title>
+
+ <p>Input is written as XML according to one of the DTDs and output
+ is corresponding HTML. Documentation for an Erlang/OTP application
+ is usually organized as follows:</p>
+ <taglist>
+ <tag><em>User's Guide</em></tag>
+ <item>
+ <p>(DTD:
+ <seealso marker="user_guide_dtds#partDTD">part</seealso>)
+ A collection of chapters
+ (<seealso marker="user_guide_dtds#chapterDTD">chapter</seealso>).
+ </p>
+ </item>
+
+ <tag><em>Reference Manual</em></tag>
+ <item>
+ <p>(DTD:
+ <seealso marker="refman_dtds#applicationDTD">application</seealso>
+ A collection of manual pages for modules
+ (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#erlrefDTD">erlref</seealso>),
+ applications
+ (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#apprefDTD">appref</seealso>),
+ commands
+ (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#comrefDTD">comref</seealso>),
+ C libraries
+ (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#crefDTD">cref</seealso>) and
+ files
+ (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#filerefDTD">fileref</seealso>).
+ </p>
+ </item>
+
+ <tag><em>Release Notes</em></tag>
+ <item>
+ <p>Same structure as the User's Guide.</p>
+ </item>
+ </taglist>
+
+ <p>In some cases, one or more of the User's Guide, Reference Manual
+ and Release Notes are omitted. Also, it is possible to use either
+ the <c>application</c> or <c>part</c> DTD to write other types
+ of documentation for the application.</p>
+
+ <p>A special kind of DTD,
+ <seealso marker="fasc_dtds">fascicules</seealso>, can be used to
+ specify the different parts of the documentation, and which one
+ of those should be shown as default.</p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Structure of Generated HTML</title>
+
+ <p>The generated HTML corresponding to a <c>part</c> or
+ <c>application</c> document is split into a left frame and a right
+ frame. The left frame contains information about the document
+ and links to the included files, that is chapters or manual pages.
+ The right frame is used to display either the front page for
+ the document, or the selected chapter/manual page.</p>
+
+ <p>The left frame also contains links to a bibliography and a
+ glossary, which are automatically generated.</p>
+
+ <p>In the case of an <c>application</c> document, the left frame
+ also contains a link to an automatically generated index.</p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Basic Tags</title>
+
+ <p>All DTDs in the DocBuilder DTD suite share a basic set of tags.
+ An author can easily switch from one DTD to another and still use
+ the same basic tags. It is furthermore easy to copy pieces of
+ information from one document to another, even though they do not
+ use the same DTD.</p>
+
+ <p>The basic set of tags are divided into two categories:
+ <seealso marker="block_tags">block tags</seealso> and
+ <seealso marker="inline_tags">inline tags</seealso>. Block tags
+ typically define a separate block of information, like a
+ paragraph or a list. Inline tags are typically used within block
+ tags, for example a highlighted word within a paragraph.</p>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>About This Document</title>
+
+ <p>In this User's Guide, the structure of the different documents
+ and the meaning of the tags are explained. There are numerous
+ examples of documentation source code.</p>
+
+ <p>For readability and simplicity, the examples have been kept as
+ short as possible. For an example of what the generated HTML
+ will look like, it is recommended to look at the DocBuilder
+ documentation itself:</p>
+ <list>
+ <item>This User's Guide is written using the <c>part</c> and
+ <c>chapter</c> DTDs.</item>
+
+ <item>The Reference Manual is written using
+ the <c>application</c>, <c>appref</c> and <c>erlref</c> DTDs.
+ </item>
+ </list>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Usage</title>
+
+ <list type="ordered">
+ <item>
+ <p>Create the relevant XML files.</p>
+
+ <p>If there are EDoc comments in a module, the function
+ <seealso marker="docb_gen#module/1">docb_gen:module/1,2</seealso>
+ can be used to generate an XML file according to
+ the <c>erlref</c> DTD for this module.</p>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <p>The XML files can be validated using
+ <seealso marker="docb_xml_check#validate/1">docb_xml_check:validate/1</seealso>.
+ </p>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <p>Generate HTML files by using
+ <seealso marker="docb_transform#file/1">docb_transform:file/1,2</seealso>.
+ </p>
+ </item>
+ </list>
+ </section>
+</chapter>
+