How to Generate a Source Code Documentation

Visual Expert can automatically document your code.

The end result is a very comprehensive HTML documentation, detailing every object and its dependencies throughout your application. It can be used as reference manuals for code maintenance, review purpose, and knowledge transfer.

For more details, you can checkout the following samples:

How to document your code using Visual Expert?

Open your Visual Expert project, and click on the Documentation tab in the ribbon menu.
“Generate Now” launches the documentation generation using default or latest settings.
“Schedule Documentation” allows you to schedule the documentation generation.

You can schedule the documentation on a regular basis (daily, weekly, monthly) or on a specific time, when your machine is not busy.
The “Open/View” button opens the latest documentation generated.
Visual Expert supports four Languages: English, French, Japanese and Spanish.
The code documentation will be generated based on your language selection.
By default, Visual Expert generates a documentation on the whole project.
“Adjust Content” options allow you to narrow down the scope of the documentation. For more details check: Advance Settings > Adjust Content.
“Advanced Settings” opens the Documentation Center where you can customize the documentation.

Customize code documentation with advanced settings

The Documentation Center is divided into two subsections:

1. Settings

This section allows you to indicate the path, content, style, template and language before generating the documentation.

Indicate path, content, style, template & language for code documentation

Path for Doc:

Configure a path from your harddrive to save the documentation.
Click on ‘Browse Folders’ to change the path.

Style:

Visual Expert allows you to create a custom style for your HTML documentation.
Click on ‘Edit Styles’ to create a new style. In the dropdown change ‘Novalys Default Style’ with your custom style.

Template:

Select documentation template as ‘Reference Documentation’ or ‘Code Review’.

Content:

By default Visual Expert generates the documentation for the whole project.
If you need to document only a part of your project, you can select the option ‘Selected Items Only’ in this dropdown.

Create code documentation for selected items of your project

The documentation will be generated only for the components selected in the Main View.

Generate code documentation for selected items of your project

Language:

Select the documentation language from these options - English, French, Spanish and Japanese.

Adjust Content:

This window allows you to filter out the component types included in the documentation according to their type.

Filter the components according to their type in code documentation

As shown above, for each chosen component type, you can also filter out one or more details as needed.
The changes will be saved for all future documentations for this project on clicking ‘OK’.

2. Scheduler

This subsection allows you to schedule the documentation daily, weekly, monthly or on a specific time.

Schedule code documentation daily, weekly, monthly or on a specific time

Visual Expert considers the current settings for path, style, template, content and language while generating the scheduled documentation.

Four buttons are provided at the bottom of the Documentation center. Usage of each is as shown below:

Options available in documentation center

Homepage of a sample Reference Documentation created for a PB + SQL server project

Sample Documentation for PB + SQL Server Project

CODE REVIEW REPORTS

Visual Expert can also generate Code Review Reports.

Please check-out the following samples:

You can generate such a report...

In order to create a code review documentation, follow the steps given below:

In the ribbon menu, select the “Documentation” tab and click on “Advanced Settings” to open the “Documentation Center”.
Select template as “Code Review”.
Click on “Generate Now” to start generating the code review documentation.

Adjust Content

You can filter the content of the code review documentation by selecting only the required component types and parts of the documentation. For that, click on the “Adjust Content” button to open the documentation content settings.

Filter content of your code review documentation by component type

For example, below selection will only generate code review documentation for unused and uncommented procedures.

Generate Code Review Report for unused & uncommented procedures

Homepage of a sample code review documentation created for a PB + SQL server project