Add intelisense explanation to method/property definitions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark
  • Start date Start date
M

Mark

Hi,

When you view the definitions of standard methods/properties in
intelisense as well as the basic definition you get a brief
description, for example for string.length you see "Gets the number of
characters in this instance".

Is it possible to add this to my own methods & properties?

Thanks,
Mark
 
Good question, I suspect it's going to invlolve an XML schema, but I dont
know how to do this. I'll be intresed at the response.
 
This power toy is neat. Unfortunately, you don't get the benefits of
intellisense unless you compile your classes into a dll. Classes local to
your project won't show the intellisense. There's a gotta be a better, pure
"attribute" solution, no?
 
According to the help, VB.Net does not directly support Code Comments used by
Intellisense.
Currently the only way to achieve this is through compilation and other means.
It has been rumored that one of the upcoming releases of VB.Net will somehow
support this.

Gerald
 
* (e-mail address removed) (Mark) scripsit:
When you view the definitions of standard methods/properties in
intelisense as well as the basic definition you get a brief
description, for example for string.length you see "Gets the number of
characters in this instance".

Is it possible to add this to my own methods & properties?
Click to expand...

Yes.

My FAQ:

Adding tooltips in intellisense for VB.NET assemblies:

VS.NET takes the text shown in intellisense tips from an XML file that
is provided in addition to the assembly (for example, a DLL). The XML
file must have the same name as the corresponding DLL with ".xml"
appended and must be placed in the same folder as the assembly
(assembly "Foo.dll", XML file "Foo.dll.xml").

The format of the XML file taken by VS.NET is specified here:

<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/csref/html/vclrfprocessingxmlfile.asp>

For C#, VS.NET creates this XML file automatically (compiler option
"/doc"). For VB.NET, that's currently not supported, but this will be
possible in VB 2005.

You can create the XML file by hand, but notice that this will take a
lot of time and it will be hard to update the file if parts of the
assembly change. It's much easier to use one of the tools listed below
to create the XML file. Tools like NDOC will take the XML file and can
be used to create an HTML Help file from this data.

One easy way is to provide information for tooltips as XML comments
inside the source files and then use tools like VB.DOC to create the XML
file that contains the data. Then you can copy this file into the
assembly's directory to provide information to VS.NET that enables it to
display tooltips, or you can create a help file. The help file can be
deployed with the assembly and can be used by other developers who use
the assembly as reference.

For VB.NET 2002/2003:

My XML Comments FAQ:

VB Commenter
<URL:http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/ide/>
-> "VB Commenter"

XML Documentation
<URL:http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/vb/>
-> "XML Documentation"

VBXC - VB.NET XML Commentor
<URL:http://vbxmldoc.tor-erik.net/>

NDOC (formerly DOC.NET)
<URL:http://ndoc.sourceforge.net/>

VB.DOC
<URL:http://vb-doc.sourceforge.net/>

<URL:http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/Workspaces/Workspace.aspx?id=112b5449-f702-46e2-87fa-86bdf39a17dd>

XML comments will be introduced to VB in version 2005 ("Whidbey").

C# XML comments:

C# Programmer's Reference -- Recommended Tags for Documentation Comments
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/csref/html/vclrfTagsForDocumentationComments.asp>
 
I should qualify my statements.
VB.Net does not natively support code comments within your current project.
I believe what you want to achieve is to add an attribute to a function in the
project you are editing and have that attribute automatically parsed by the IDE
and displayed elsewhere within the same project.
There are a number of options for documenting your code and having these
extracted to an XML file when you project is compiled.
Then when you reference your project into another, you can then get your code
comments.
Just not within the same project "on-the-fly".

Gerald
 
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