[Mono-docs-list] Long term Monodoc feature requests.

[Mike Kestner]

On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 08:15, Miguel de Icaza wrote:

> We just add a node for third-party apps to have them show the content
> there.
> 
> Notice that just doing a blanket `hook-up-anywhere' is bad, in the same
> way that program menus are bad on Gnome/KDE: people just pack that stuff
> with useless bits.

Here's my dream as a pseudo-3rd-party library developer:

I develop my docs using monodoc xml format.
At make time, I run my docs through a DTD validater.
I install my docs to prefix/share/doc/<package>.
I'm done.

Assuming the DTD/validator is shipped with mono/mcs itself, I now have
no monodoc dependency in Gtk# and the circular dep is broken.
If monodoc wants to ship a .tree/.zip/.sources set for Gtk# docs by
default, they can build them from the Gtk# prefix and install them to
the monodoc prefix at monodoc install time.

Any users/packagers that want to build static html of my docs can
install those tools, point them at my share/doc/gtk-sharp node and let
em rip into whatever dir they choose.

For third party libs that monodoc doesn't know about up front, it would
be nice to have UI in monodoc that would let a user specify a <dir
containing monodoc source xml> which would cause monodoc to build the
sources into whatever representation it wants to use, and install them
either into the monodoc prefix if permissions are available, or into a
user dir that is probed by the monodoc browser at runtime.

This would allow packagers to stuff prebuilt docs into the
monodoc-browser's system repo, and also allow unprivileged users to
identify docs they want the browser to expose.
  
-- 
Mike Kestner <mkestner@ximian.com>