How to quickly document your .NET Framework code

Do you need to document your .NET Framework C# or VB.NET application source code?

While you could do this by hand, it's worth investing in a utility called the .NET Documentation Tool. This handy little tool will quickly document all your code for you, leaving you with time to devote to less boring tasks.

The .NET Documentation Tool code documentor automatically creates source code documentation in a number of formats:

• HTML format is useful for placing a handy source code database documentation reference on your company's or your client's Intranet. The source code is fully color coded using a similar color scheme used by Visual Studio.
• HTML Help format is the standard Microsoft Windows help file format, and allows the .NET application's documentation to be contained within a single file. HTML Help database documentation produced by the .NET Documentation Tool also has a nice index of code entities such as methods and classes, and is even fully searchable!
• Microsoft Word/RTF format database documentation is great for printing and showing your line manager!
• Text format documentation can form the basis of other documentation that you might be told to write for an application.

Being class based, it's useful to be able to document an application's Classes, together with the Methods (Functions and Subroutines), Enumerators and Properties within that class.

The best feature of the .NET Framework from a documentation point of view is the ability to include XML Comments in C# or VB.NET sourcecode. These comments are extracted by the .NET Documentation Tool and incorporated into the documentation for that .NET project.

This is a great advantage of .NET as if the development team incorporates comments directly into their code then the application almost becomes self documenting. Keeping the documentation inline with the code also means that the development team can easily keep the documentation updated.

The .NET Documentation Tool will document any type of .NET project, from Windows GUI and Console applications to standalone class libraries.

The .NET Documentation Tool has additional support for ASP.NET web applications. ASP.NET support includes the recognition of Master Pages (.master), User Controls (.ascx), Web Controls, web.config files, JavaScript include files (.js), Cascading Style Sheets (.css), Web Handlers (.ashx) and Web Service files (.asmx). Application and Session variables are identified within the code.

As well as the .NET C# or VB.NET source code, the .NET Documentation Tool can also document SQL Server or Microsoft Access databases associated with a .NET application. The documentation can therefore show tables, views and stored procedures associated with an application. For dedicated SQL Server database documentation, a SQL Documentation Tool is also available.

If you still have classic ASP websites, then an ASP Documentation Tool for classic ASP is also available.

So if you want to save your valuable time then give the .NET Documentation Tool a go (a free trial version is available for download).