CodeChat 0.0.10a2

The CodeChat system for software documentation

Welcome to CodeChat, a programmer’s word processor. CodeChat encourages literate programming by transforming source files into web pages and by providing a powerful editor which synchronizes between the source code view and the web view of a document. CodeChat transforms plain-text source code into a beautiful and descriptive document, allowing you to record your ideas, helpful hyperlinks to on-line resources, include expressive images and diagrams, and much more.

Contents

• Getting started

  • Sphinx

  • ReST

• Contributing

• Recent changes

• License

Getting started

First, install Enki, which hosts the CodeChat system. Next, open some source code of a supported format [1]. In the Settings | Settings | CodeChat panel, click Enable then OK. Now, any properly-formatted comments will be interpreted as ReST. For example:

Source code
// ReST_ works *here*. //But not here -- a space must follow the comment. /* Not here either. Only single-line comments work. */ a = 1; // Not here either. Comments must be on a b = 2; // separate line, not following code.	ReST works here. //But not here -- a space must follow the comment. /* Not here either. Only single-line comments work. */ a = 1; // Not here either. Comments must be on a b = 2; // separate line, not following code.

Sphinx

“Sphinx is a tool that makes it easy to create intelligent and beautiful documentation” [2]. It provides additional features, including the ability to link together many documents (such as all the files in a program’s source code). Enki will soon support Sphinx.

[1]

Currently, only single-line comments in C/C++, Python, reST, assembly (.s), BASH scripts, PHP, MATLAB scripts, DOS batch (.bat) files, .ini, and .iss files are supported.

[2]

http://sphinx-doc.org/index.html

ReST

“reStructuredText is an easy-to-read, what-you-see-is-what-you-get plaintext markup syntax” [3]. Helpful pages:

• The excellent reStructuredText primer provided by the Sphinx project.

• A longer Quick reStructuredText guide.

[3]

http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

Contributing

This is a fairly basic implementation; much improvement is needed! Please use the issue tracker to report bugs or request features; even better, or contribute to the code at the CodeChat homepage!

Recent changes

• 0.0.10a1, release 17-Apr-2014:

  • Revamped packaging.

  • Updated docs.

  • Used .. instead of marker to indent comments, producing cleaner reST.

  • Split CodeToRest into CodeToRest, CodeToRestSphinx modules.

License

Copyright (C) 2012-2014 Bryan A. Jones.

This file is part of CodeChat.

CodeChat is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

CodeChat is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with CodeChat. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.