Helixoft Product News

We are glad to announce that the new version 7.2 of VSdocman has been released. VSdocman is a  Visual Studio tool for a quick commenting and automatic generation of technical documentation from your C# and VB .NET projects. For more information go to VSdocman home page .

This minor update adds some new features and improvements. You can download it from here. If you have installed VSdocman 6.8 or earlier, uninstall it before installing the version 7.2.

What's new in VSdocman version 7.2:

1. NEW: Added support for new ASP .NET 5 web applications (*.xproj) in VS 2015.
2. FIX: Namespaces were incorrectly shown at the top TOC level in generated MS Help Viewer format. The problem occurred only in 7.x versions.
3. FIX: The comment editor produced a damaged comment if it contained a <seealso> tag with a text containing < > & characters. The same applied to <exception> and <permission> tags if they contained these characters in their cref attribute. Now the characters are correctly escaped with &lt; &gt; &amp; and no failure occurs.
4. FIX: If you selected the text that contained < > & characters in the comment editor and applied inline code style to it (<c> tag), these characters were removed.
5. FIX: Dead links are no longer displayed as an error text in Docx output format.

VSdocman has been evolving for years and we have always listened to your opinion. In our effort to simplify and improve VSdocman, we'd like to know some information from you.

To better understand your needs, we have created a one-minute anonymous survey. We invite all VSdocman users, whether with registered or trial version, to participate.

START THE SURVEY

We are glad to announce that the new version 7.1 of VSdocman has been released. VSdocman is a  Visual Studio tool for a quick commenting and automatic generation of technical documentation from your C# and VB .NET projects. For more information go to VSdocman home page .

This minor update adds some new features and improvements. You can download it from here. If you have installed VSdocman 6.8 or earlier, uninstall it before installing the version 7.1.

What's new in VSdocman version 7.1:

1. NEW: Statistics of compiled topics (classes, methods, ...) is displayed when the compilation is finished.
2. NEW: Added complete Chinese translation for generated documentation. Just select zh-CN as the language in the output options.
3. NEW: You can specify the following additional frameworks to be listed as supported: .NET Framework Client Profile, Portable Class Library, .NET for Windows Store apps and Others.
4. CHANGE: The CHM compiler that is used for compiling to CHM format is no longer bundled with VSdocman installer. The utility is a part of free HTML Help Workshop from Microsoft that you need to download and install. There's a chance that it is already installed on your system. Check your VSdocman Options - Miscellanous - Environment page.
5. CHANGE: Improved Help&Manual output. Generated H&M project contained a lot of conditional text, especially due to HxS links. This caused very slow loading and compilation. Since HxS (VS 2005/2008 help format) is no longer used as a common format, all HxS links were converted to web links and the conditional text was removed. This means that, for example, in HxS documentation, the link to System.String now points to online MSDN instead of local MSDN. Large H&M projects are  much more reliable now.
6. FIX: When the documentation title contained some Unicode characters (e.g. Chinese), then CHM compilation could fail on some systems, probably those with non-English OS.

We are glad to announce that the new version 7.0 of VSdocman has been released. VSdocman is a  Visual Studio tool for a quick commenting and automatic generation of technical documentation from your C# and VB .NET source code files. For more information go to VSdocman home page .

This major update adds support for VS 2014, many new features and fixes some problems. You can download it from here. If you have installed an earlier version of VSdocman, uninstall it before installing the version 7.0.

What's new in VSdocman version 7.0:

1. NEW: Support for VS 2014 and VS 2014 help system.
2. NEW: You can easily copy project properties from one project to other projects. There's a new "Copy" button on the left panel of the VSdocman project properties window. You can select which properties will be copied and to which project(s).
3. NEW: Solution-wide common properties. They are used when you execute "Compile Solution to Single Documentation". They are saved inside a solution profile. You can edit them by clicking on the project name at the top of Project Properties in VSdocman and select SOLUTION-WIDE PROPERTIES.
4. NEW: You can create and edit XML comments even in a shared project (.shproj), for example in Universal Apps.
5. NEW: Enabled Ctrl+A in "Edit custom topic source" window and in "View source" tab in the comment editor.
6. CHANGE: The concept of a "base project" when executing "Compile Solution to Single Documentation" is no longer used. The solution-wide common properties are used instead. You can select which common properties will override the properties from individual projects. This allows you for better flexibility. As a consequence, the /baseProject parameter is no longer supported in command line mode. If you already used "base project" before, you can easily copy its properties to the solution-wide common properties. In VS, select the project that served as the base project. Open VSdocman window and select Project Properties. Click the 'Copy' button on the left side and copy desired properties from the project to SOLUTION-WIDE PROPERTIES.
7. FIX: F1 didn't work for constructors in VS 2010/2012/2013 help. Moreover, links pointing to external URLs (e.g. http) in VS 2012 and 2013 help didn't work.
8. FIX: The <font> XML comment tag didn't change a text color in VS 2010/2012/2013 help.
9. FIX: When the command line utility VSdocmanCmdLine.exe was executed with VS 2013 to compile a documentation for a project, then wrong project from the same solution could be compiled instead of the specified one. 
10. FIX: Occasional problems with class diagrams (warnings and diagrams not generated) when executing "Compile Solution to Single Documentation".
11. FIX: If a code member or a topic had a link with an empty cref attribute in its XML comment, then some other links in the comment could be generated as an empty text.
12. FIX: In website projects, sometimes the files in Project Properties - Code Members - Files were not grouped into folders.

We have released a new VSdocman 7.0 beta 2. VSdocman is a  Visual Studio tool for a quick commenting and automatic generation of technical documentation from your C# and VB .NET source code files. For more information go to VSdocman home page .
 

This build fixes some minor problems in beta 1. You can download it from here. Please let us know your positive or negative experience.

Please remember that it is a beta. We have changed how settings are handled so we recommend you to backup your settings before you try it:

1. To backup preferences, go to VSdocman - Options and press Export button at the left.
2. If you don't have them under source control, backup also *.sln.vsdoc file in your solution folder and *.vsdoc file(s) in your project folder(s).

What's new in VSdocman version 7.0 beta 2:

1. FIX: In website projects, sometimes the files in Project Properties - Code Members - Files were not grouped into folders.
2. FIX: Some minor problems with shared (.shproj) projects - no VSdocman items shown in the context menu or the comment editor didn't automatically update its contents if "Automatically update content of the comment editor ..." was selected in options.
3. FIX: When you were working on your code and the comment editor was opened (as modeless toolwindow), the focus was stolen by the editor occasionally.

We are glad to announce that a new version 7.0 beta of VSdocman has been released. VSdocman is a  Visual Studio tool for a quick commenting and automatic generation of technical documentation from your C# and VB .NET source code files. For more information go to VSdocman home page .

This major update adds support for VS 2014, many new features and fixes some problems. You can download it from here. Please let us know your positive or negative experience.

Please remember that it is a beta. We have changed how settings are handled so I recommend you to backup your settings before you try it:

1. To backup preferences, go to VSdocman - Options and press Export button at the left.
2. If you don't have them under source control, backup also *.sln.vsdoc file in your solution folder and *.vsdoc file(s) in your project folder(s).

What's new in VSdocman version 7.0:

1. NEW: Support for VS 2014 and VS 2014 help system.
2. NEW: You can easily copy project properties from one project to other projects. There's a new "Copy" button on the left panel of the VSdocman project properties window. You can select which properties will be copied and to which project(s).
3. NEW: Solution-wide common properties. They are used when you execute "Compile Solution to Single Documentation". They are saved inside a solution profile. You can edit them by clicking on the project name at the top of Project Properties in VSdocman and select SOLUTION-WIDE PROPERTIES.
4. NEW: You can create and edit XML comments even in a shared project (.shproj), for example in Universal Apps.
5. NEW: Enabled Ctrl+A in "Edit custom topic source" window and in "View source" tab in the comment editor.
6. CHANGE: The concept of a "base project" when executing "Compile Solution to Single Documentation" is no longer used. The solution-wide common properties are used instead. You can select which common properties will override the properties from individual projects. This allows you for better flexibility. As a consequence, the /baseProject parameter is no longer supported in command line mode. If you already used "base project" before, you can easily copy its properties to the solution-wide common properties. In VS, select the project that served as the base project. Open VSdocman window and select Project Properties. Click the 'Copy' button on the left side and copy desired properties from the project to SOLUTION-WIDE PROPERTIES.
7. FIX: F1 didn't work for constructors in VS 2010/2012/2013 help. Moreover, links pointing to external URLs (e.g. http) in VS 2012 and 2013 help didn't work.
8. FIX: The <font> XML comment tag didn't change a text color in VS 2010/2012/2013 help.
9. FIX: When the command line utility VSdocmanCmdLine.exe was executed with VS 2013 to compile a documentation for a project, then wrong project from the same solution could be compiled instead of the specified one. 
10. FIX: Occasional problems with class diagrams (warnings and diagrams not generated) when executing "Compile Solution to Single Documentation".
11. FIX: If a code member or a topic had a link with an empty cref attribute in its XML comment, then some other links in the comment could be generated as an empty text.

Note, VSdocman's help is not updated yet.

We have released a new version 6.8 of VSdocman. VSdocman is a  Visual Studio 2013/2012/2010/2008/2005 add-in for a quick commenting and automatic generation of technical and API documentation from your C# and VB .NET projects. For more information go to VSdocman home page .

This update contains some improvements and fixes several minor problems. You can download it from here.

What's new in VSdocman version 6.8:

1. CHANGE: Removed the following settings for modeless comment editor: "Tool window", "Dockable" and "Tabbed document window". They were redundant and the window can be customized directly in the IDE as other VS tool windows, e.g. Solution Explorer.
2. FIX: When a C# interface or a structure had an attribute with text that contained ":" character, then inherited/implemented interfaces were listed incorrectly in the generated Syntax section.
3. FIX: When creating a new comment with 'Add XML Comment' or 'Comment Editor', a default comment was not inherited from an overridden/implemented member in a current project. The comment inheriting worked fine when the comment came from a referenced assembly (i.e. not from a project member) or when it was done automatically during documentation compilation.
4. FIX: When modeless comment editor toolwindow was closed and the "Automatically apply changes ..." option was selected, the comment changes were not applied sometimes.
5. FIX: When an URL in href attribute of <see> or <seealso> XML comment tag contained a space character, the space was removed in generated link.
6. FIX: Sometimes, MS Word reported an error in generated docx file and you needed to repair it. This happened when: A) There was an image with the space character or any non-ASCII character in its filename. B) There were files in your "external files folder" that were not actually used.
7. FIX: When some third-party designer was opened in VS (for example DevExpress XAF Model Editor), then when you tried to open VSdocman for the first time, the licensing error dialog appeared.

We have released a new version 6.7 of VSdocman. VSdocman is a  Visual Studio 2013/2012/2010/2008/2005 add-in for a quick commenting and automatic generation of technical documentation from your C# and VB .NET projects. For more information go to VSdocman home page .

This update contains some improvements and fixes several minor problems. You can download it from here.

What's new in VSdocman version 6.7:

1. NEW: Added additional keyboard shortcuts for cut, copy and paste - Shift+Del, Ctrl+Ins and Shift+Ins in WYSIWYG comment editor.
2. CHANGE: Improved Help&Manual output for the latest H&M versions (show TOC when particular topic is loaded with direct URL, fixed newlines in code examples).
3. CHANGE: Improved performance of comment editing in some projects that reference many third-party assemblies.
4. FIX: Sometimes, a missing comment was not inherited from overridden/implemented member in a referenced third-party assembly.
5. FIX: When IE 10 or higher was installed, double/triple-click didn't select whole word/sentence in WYSIWYG comment editor. Moreover, the word selection is improved now, it works as in VS editor. A word can contain an underscore '_' character and it doesn't contain a trailing space.
6. FIX: In very rare cases, when you clicked inside WYSIWYG comment editor, the caret was set to a wrong position.
7. FIX: In WYSIWYG comment editor, when a text selection contained a text of various colors, it was impossible to change its properties, e.g. change it to a bulleted list.
8. FIX: Application could crash when pasting a text copied from MS Word (and maybe some other applications too) into WYSIWYG comment editor.
9. FIX: The language selected by a user in local HTML documentation was not retained in Chrome browser. Moreover, the default selected language is C# and not VB now. This can be changed in a generated config file.
10. FIX: In docx  output, multiple sub-classes were indented incorrectly in the Inheritance Hierarchy.
11. FIX: The Inheritance Hierarchy was not generated for some classes in some cases.

We are glad to announce a partnership with infoDiagram - a maker of pre-designed slides, diagrams, icons and other graphics. You can perfectly use the graphics from their portfolio in your documentation or presentations. Especially in the introductory topics that describe functionality of a component. A simple picture is better than a long description.

You can find many visual sets at infoDiagram that you can use. Those especially interesting for you could be IT related icons:

Or something for team leaders (Scrum, Kanban, SWOT, ...):

For our clients (VSdocman and VBdocman), we have arranged a 15% discount on any package. If you are interested, just contact us with your order number or registration key and we'll send you a discount coupon code. This offer is time limited and expires on May 2nd 2014.