API or somthing like c# doc (1 Viewer)

[chrisonline]

Is there any documentation about the sourcecode?
Functions, Classes, Mehtods?

For example:
I want to use the inbuild video, but i don't know how?!?

I found only a little documentation for the listcontrol, buttons and so on, but nothing else...

Do i realy need to debug the original source code do find out how the function, classes, .... works?

 

[Shukuyen]

Yes, as far as I know you have to read the MP source code or get inspiration from other plugins to learn how that stuff works.

It is really sad that no good documentation exists, but that's the way it is.

 

[chrisonline]

OK, so let's start the debug

Very strange, the programmers of MediaPortal must have docs i think...

 

[tourettes]

Very strange, the programmers of MediaPortal must have docs i think...

Only the code, all of us are extremely lazy when it comes to documeting things (and that is sad in a way).

 

[FredP42]

Hello,
I agree I think it is a little sad, specially when you look at the amount of code, it is not really easy to read.

So here are some suggestions regarding documentations I'm using at work:

* There is a very nice and free plugin to help with documentation called GhostDoc. It wiil add a context menu "Document this" when you click on a method or a property. If you name your methods or variable correctly it will generate very nice documentation, otherwise it is easy to modify the result.
Sadly, it will not work with VS Express (since Express does not support plugins ).
* It would be nice to generate the XML documentation files (at least Core, Dialog and Utils) and provide them for plugin developers so that the help will show directly in the plugin's solution.
* A tool like Doxygen can generate nice documentation and can be integrated to the build process to provide an online documentation.

Of course all of this is useless if the code is not documented, but I think if you start using such tools it encourages you to improve the documentation, specially with GhostDoc.