Goals

Doxyqml lets you use Doxygen to document your QML classes.

It integrates as a Doxygen input filter to turn .qml files into pseudo-C++ which Doxygen can then use to generate documentation.

Installing

Doxyqml uses the standard Python setup tools, so you can install it with pip:

pip3 install doxyqml

or manually with:

python3 setup.py install

Telling Doxygen to use Doxyqml

To tell Doxygen about Doxyqml you must make a few changes to your Doxygen configuration file.

1. Add the .qml extension to the FILTER_PATTERNS key:

    FILTER_PATTERNS = *.qml=doxyqml
   

   Note: on Windows Doxyqml installs itself in the Scripts folder of your Python installation. If this folder is not in the PATH, either add it or use the full path to Doxyqml here (but that is less portable across machines)

2. Add the .qml extension to FILE_PATTERNS:

    FILE_PATTERNS = *.qml
   

3. Since Doxygen 1.8.8, you must also add the .qml extension to EXTENSION_MAPPING:

    EXTENSION_MAPPING = qml=C++
   

Documenting types

QML is partially-typed: functions are untyped, properties and signals are. Doxyqml provides a way to define types when they are missing or not precise enough.

Functions

Functions in QML are untyped, but you can define types in the documentation like this:

/**
 * Create a user
 * @param type:string firstname User firstname
 * @param type:string lastname User lastname
 * @param type:int User age
 * @return type:User The User object
 */
function createUser(firstname, lastname, age);

Properties

QML properties are typed, so Doxyqml uses them by default. You can nevertheless overwrite the type using the same type:<name> syntax. This is useful to document property aliases:

/** type:string The user lastname */
property alias lastname: someObject.text

Signals

QML signals are typed, so there is no need to use the type:<name> syntax to document their parameters. Using type:<name> syntax in signal documentation will not work: Doxyqml won't strip it out and Doxygen will confuse it with the parameter name.

/**
 * User just logged in
 * @param user The user which logged in
 */
signal loggedIn(User user)

Extracting internal elements

QML elements with an id are exported as private member variables. If you set the EXTRACT_ALL and EXTRACT_PRIVATE Doxygen keys to YES, then these elements will be visible in the generated documentation.