Generating Documentation Using Sandcastle
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009Once you have finished documenting your code, you are ready for the Sandcastle. Sandcastle essentially is a documentation compiler. You can download it at:
It is a command prompt tool, but a number of open source GUIs can be found on the Internet. One of them is the Sandcastle Help File Builder (SHFB) and you can download it at:
SHFB is very easy to use. In order to build a documentation (.chm) file you need to follow a few simple steps:
- Create a new project
- Add your assemblies to it (each has to have an .xml documentation file accompanying it)
- Build/Dependencies option – add all assemblies your assemblies depend on
- Build/Framework Version option – select framework version
- Help File/Presentation Style – select vs2005
- Help File/Help Title – select help title for your help file
- Help File/HtmlHelpName – select you help filename
- Set other desired options (most of them is self-explanatory)
- Build help file
SHFB snapshot is shown in the picture bellow:
Finally, after the build process is complete (it may take a long time), the help file is ready! Enjoy!
