Recently, I have been really enjoying AS3 because of its versatility. The projects I have been working on are growing quite complex and hard to manage. The main issue I have been having is remembering what each class does. I have been very careful to comment code but sometimes it would be nice just to have a document that describes all variables, methods etc. Today I started looking at automated systems to create documentation from AS3 project code and I came across NaturalDocs. Its a very simple to use command line tool which goes through all my project code reading the comments and structure. NaturalDocs then creates a full blown website documenting the code.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote an application in AS3 that used FFMPEG for video manipulation. The application utilised the NativeProcess class from adobe air to execute native processes via the command line. The technique really adds another level to the versatility of AS3. Since the video app I have been itching to use the technique again so I decided to make a very simple GUI for NaturalDocs. The picture above is a screen shot of an air app that has NaturalDocs embedded in. The app is very simple all the user has to do is click the top box and locate the project code then click the second box and define a folder for the destination of the docs. Once “create docs” is clicked NaturalDocs goes ahead and creates the documentation for the code. Its very simple but hopefully it will be quite useful. I was very impressed with the work that Greg Valure has done on NaturalDocs its a very intuitive and efficient system to use.
Some of the AS3 resources I have been working on are becoming very useful. I can’t wait to start documenting some of the more universal classes I have written and then releasing them into the great wild west that is the internet.
A screen shot of the documentation that is generated:
IMPORTANT: None of the work done for NaturalDocs is mine I am only responsible for the GUI used to short cut the functionality of NaturalDocs
I will upload the app and post link to download it soon. I don’t think this would break the GPL license the NaturalDocs project is licensed with.
