In my previous message the last line somehow was omitted.
It was about http://svn.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/trunk/gentoc.pp?root=docs&view=log being a simple script. It will also generate an entry for the LCL and lazutils (the latter since yesterday) when run in a directory with these in them.
To make it more dynamical, one could expand it with the option of a template or something. (now it constructs the html by hand, since it is so simple, but it could be done using a template) and a file with filename - descriptions to override the hardcoded ones.
It is very, very simple code.
Nice. Let's hope it gets used by the Laz devs when generating the docs
About the descriptions: you mention templates might be used, but couldn't you inspect the actual chm and extract the title from it in some way?
A LCL pdf is possible I think. But the major problem with LCL.* is not if it is searchable etc, but its contents. The last time I checked, not even all description per unit in the toplevel TOC were filled in.
I disagree with the Michael Van Canneyt school of "we don't add documentation to the PDF until the entire unit is documented". I'd rather have a partially filled document that invites people to add content than nothing. Of course, if the amount of content is extremely low, it would look a bit silly, but I'd think the lcl has a lot of documentation already.
Additionally, even listing the bare function/class names has sense: because these names mean something, it will help people find functionality they need.
That's actually one of my pet peeves with the FPC packages documentation: how is one to know there is e.g. a zip implementation if it isn't mentioned?
(Disclaimer: below is one of those "it's wrong and it should be fixed just not by me because I don't know how or what to fix exactly" rants, I know. Sorry for that, and I do appreciate the hard work that has gone into help. It's just that I think it somehow should be easier)
Apart from that, perhaps it really is time to modify the online help web pages so that users can add/edit missing documentation using their browser (as I think Michael suggested some time ago in one of the mailing lists). Presumably the chms can be changed to add a "go online to edit this page" link to the bottom of each help page...
To me, despite the huge amount of work done on the fpdoc system, editing help and especially creating new help isn't that straightforward or intuitive. How to call the package name? Why is the help content called a descripton? Why can't you drag and drop links from e.g. code?
Perhaps improvements in the Lazarus doc editor could also be made... such as: run your edits through fpdoc/xmllint to see if the resulting code makes sense - e.g. link typos are either not there or are on purpose (i.e. links to as yet undocumented features)
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