The standard JavaDoc template(Doclet) didn’t change much until the recent JDK7. In my opinion, JDK7 template only made it even more difficult to browse. I looked at several third-party doclets, but none is what I want. So I started to design a new open source JavaDoc template from scratch to improve the usability. Here’s something I thought about,
- Searching. It should be done at client side to make it working on your local file system.
- IDE-like interactive navigation. The standard JavaDoc uses two frames to show packages and classes separately, which is far less usable than an Eclipse-like navigator. What made it even worse is that if you clicked inside the right side frame, the package index and class index will not refresh accordingly. You have no idea where you are.
- URLs. One drawback of the frames is that the URL do not change according to the frames. It’s very frustrating that you can’t send a JavaDoc URL to someone unless you explicitly check the URL of the individual frame.
- Look and feel. You don’t need to be a designer to see JavaDoc is ugly.
I want to make JavaDoc better and I want to make sure I do it right. The question for you to answer is,
What you expect a better JavaDoc should be?
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This isn’t answering your question directly, but since you’re keen to make a difference :-).
I’d contact Jonathon Gibbons on the compiler project in OpenJDK – he’s looking for people to help overhaul the Javadoc system and to provide the sorts of features you’re talking about. It means your changes would go into Java itself!
Alternatively come and join the Adopt OpenJDK project and we’ll get you started.
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