Does any one know of a “help doc compiler” for maxscripts??
I’ve written a number of large scripts and it’s becoming difficult to keep track of the functions and structs etc…
I was thinking it would be cool if I could run a compiler across the scripts and generate a help doc – i’d personally prefer html, but that’s just me.
Any ideas or suggestions would be great
Shane
Actually I had something a couple of years ago which was called MOOGLE (like Google for MAXScript), but it was never public. It would scan all my drives for all MAXScripts and build a database of keywords so I could find immediately in what scripts a certain keyword, variable name or even comment was used.
Also, the Project Manager script I wrote around Max 4/5 had some code that would extract function names and comments and show a quick preview of any selected script, but it never built an HTML out of it.
In general the idea is cool and relatively easy to implement. Just go for it.
I that when Bobo did the Max/Maya scripting help file he used Robohelp. I have not seen any others out there but I haven’t looked that hard either. This would be something that could be written using XML as the file format. One day when I have lots of extra time I will start on it…don’t wait around though:S
I would love to know if any one knows of a free system out there as well.
maybe the javadoc specs help.
http://java.sun.com/j2se/javadoc/
If I get it right you use a syntax for your comments and the tools generate API references.
Georg
I think we have a maxscript challange here Or maybe a maxscript python challange ;)…
-Johan
Python I think is the way that I’m going to go but a UI that will launch directly in Max would be nice as well. After thinking about this this morning a way to handle this that is universal for every one would be really nice.
Method that I’m looking at for the in max version is a full dotNet UI using XML to store all the data. Each XML could store any number of pages of help files all nested and I should be able to use html formating for the content so that it can be read in a browser style window. I would like to write all the base code in python and call that from the Max based UI so that I only have to do it once. This should be a test of my limited python skills.
I how ever like to bake in any images and not have to rely on external files for them. This would just make it cleaner but a little harder to set up.
Any other suggestions?
I have been thinking about this too some days ago, I wanted to have my soon to be website read the doc comments (PHP) and parse the script descriptions/images from that.
But it’s clear that if this is going to be a public tool some clear conventions have to be made.
Make a structure that will hold.
To start of (pseudo xml):
<doc name />
<doc description />
<doc tool type /> (macro / script / tool etc)
<doc screenshot />
<doc function name />
<doc funtion description />
Something like that, should definitly get some more attention or better logic.
And then implementing it with special comment notes maybe —@description: or /*@description: */
Just thinking out loud…
-Johan
MOOGLE: you kill me Bobo, I love the names of the scripts that you do. I’m always so literal with them, You would think that after all these years I would have at least learned that from you.
As for the tool I was going to set it up so that it was an external help file and not part of the max script file. Just like help files are. This way you don’t need to know what the format of the XML is as it will write it for you.
Yeah, I was thinking off something simular to JavaDoc system. I think you’d have to provide a proper syntext for each comment so that the compiler could pull out only those comments you wanted…
Hmmm, I think I’m onto something…
Cheers for the ideas
Shane
I think you'd have to provide a proper syntext for each comment so that the compiler could pull out only those comments you wanted
The syntax is to have a /** to start the comment.
The problem I see would be that javadoc tools may won’t catch the max script function definition. But maybe it is possible to define the function header parsing in some way.
I’d favor using some proprietary standard instead of building a new one.
There are many tools existing aroung such standards, which then could be used.
javadoc supports the inclusion of images to the api documentation.
Georg
Yeah, I was thinking of using the JavaDoc syntex as a base, but I can’t see getting it to work with maxscript without writting my own parser.
You’d also have to be able to pickup on macroscripts and structs, as well as provide keyword catches for “fn” and “function”. I’m still undecided about globals, but I guess I’ll see.
Pen: Yes, that’s the general idea. Basically you provide a predefined syntex for the comments that a parser could pickout and produce a formatted result. My desire is to have it in html, because it’s eaiser to navigate and you can open multiple windows eaisly.
Shane
I took a look at doxygen as per the other guy’s suggestion and it looks like it will do exactly what we’re asking with a little configuring…
