According to an MSDN Forums post, Microsft is preparing to release a Community Tech Preview (CTP) of Sandcastle (Documentation Compiler), its answer to NDoc, the open-source generator for documentation from XML code comments.
According to Michael Primeaux, Sandcastle generates documentation using the following overall process:
Kris Cargile suggests:
According to Michael Primeaux, Sandcastle generates documentation using the following overall process:
The imminent Sandcastle release has prompted NDoc author Kevin Downs to officially discontinue NDoc development and withdraw from the open source community. In a letter to alpha testers earlier this week, Kevin also lamented the lack of code contributions to the SourceForge project, as well as a lack of financial contributions (donations) from the many users of the product, noting that "if only roughly 1-in-10 of the those who downloaded NDoc had donated the minimum allowable amount of $5 then I could have worked on NDoc 2.0 full-time and it could have been released months ago!"
- Use the "/doc" compiler option to generate an XML documentation file.
- Run the assemblies through Sandcastle (MRefBuilder, XslTransform, and BuildAssembler) to produce a set of HTML files.
- Generate resulting help using the Microsoft HTML Help Compiler. The help compiler version 1.0 is used to produce CHM files and version 2.0 is used to generate HXS files.
Kris Cargile suggests:
The simple fact is, if financial gain is your primary goal, you probably shouldn't invest your time in an open-source project.
Community comments
Selective Quoting?
by George King,
Re: Selective Quoting?
by Kristopher Cargile,
Selective Quoting?
by George King,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
Obviously Kris didn't read the whole thing, or choose to ignore stuff to make a point! To put that quote in context (my emphasis added)
Seems fairly clear that he wasn't even asking for money, let alone it being his primary goal!
Kevin also said that the release of Sancastle was not the main reason for him quiting, he was just feed-up with all the crap he was getting.
Having read stuff like Kris's character assasination who can blame him?
Re: Selective Quoting?
by Kristopher Cargile,
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Talk about selective quoting! Kevin cited several reasons for abandoning the NDoc project - Sandcastle and money being only two of them - and I covered each of these. But to suggest that the community should pony up an annual salary for you to work full-time on an open-source, community project is asinine. As is complaining that no one will help when you just won't let them. Kevin is missing the point.
He has every right to leave the project, no matter what the reason, and I wish him well in his pursuits. We can only hope that he'll actually hand everything over before he goes so that NDoc can live on.