Javadoc for Intellisense?

[AnthonyPaulO]

Hey guys,

Quick question : It would be useful to find documentation on a method within Intellisense (I use NetBeans) so I'm wondering if you have a Javadoc jar/zip file somewhere? I couldn't find it in the server or doc folders.

Thanks,

Anthony

[tcarr]

I don't understand your question. Do you want to know how to customize the NetBeans code completion for your Java editor?

[AnthonyPaulO]

Hello Teresa!

When my cursor is on an ElectroServer5 method in netbeans, I press control-space to bring up info for the method as well as descriptions of what each parameter is. For it to come up with documentation, I have to specify a Javadoc to go along with the ElectroServer5.jar file. This can be found by clicking on the project properties, select Libraries category, select ElectroServer5.jar, and click Edit. I was wondering if you guys have a javadoc file for in-editor help.

Anthony

[tcarr]

No we don't. We provide the HTML javadoc files, but we do not provide a jar of our source code for the server api which I think is what you would need to get this to work. If you can provide a link to instructions on how to create such a javadoc jar without including our source code, I'll try to get this for you.

[AnthonyPaulO]

Oh no, I'm not suggesting you include the source code lol! The documentation in C:\ElectroServer_5_1\documentation\html is definitely *not* javadoc. Now you mention that you do provide the HTML javadoc files (for the server api I assume), but I can't find them in downloadable form; I only see the online version at http://www.electrotank.com/docs/es5/server/java/. If this were made available as a zip file that one could download, or included in the ElectroServer5 install, then I would simply point to it and voila! Instant access to the docs within the editor, making developers happy and as a side bonus slightly reducing the number of support inquiries.

[tcarr]

Hmm... I'll make a note to look into it. All the google hits I came up with said that you just jar up your source code, and that can be used as the javadocs for your library.

[AnthonyPaulO]

Hey Teresa,

No need to jar up the source code. All that javadoc does is take the source code as input and spits out html documentation as output, which is exactly what the creator of http://www.electrotank.com/docs/es5/server/java/ did. If you zip this up or have the Electroserver5 setup program install it locally, then developers will get instant reference at their fingertips as they're coding. For example, today I was typing this in :

getApi().carefullyCreateGameForUsers(

when I realized I had no idea what parameters to put in. I had to switch to my web browser, find the online javadoc for the server api, search through several pages for the method, scroll down until I found it, and found that the first parameter is the String for gameType. So I switch back to NetBeans and start typing in the game type. Now I don't know what the next parameter is, so I switch back to browser and see that it's an array of string for users, and I switch back to NetBeans... you can see where I'm going with this.

For testing purposes, I downloaded your online javadoc and saved it locally. I entered the local javadoc path into NetBeans and now it's a different story. Now when I type in :

getApi().carefullyCreateGameForUsers(

I instantly get the full documentation for that method right in front of my face, including the parameters and descriptions of what they're for. Programming Nirvana!

Javadoc.jpg

Cheers!

Anthony

[tcarr]

What we put on the website where you said you downloaded the javadoc is already there in the installation folder. See apis/server/java/docs. The documentation/html is the manual. So do you still want it to be jarred up with the next release, or is the folder going to work for you?

[AnthonyPaulO]

Really??!! OMG, I must be blind, lol! I'll look for it when I get back to the office. If it's there already then it should be fine in its current folder state, no need for jarring.

Okay, so for all you NetBeans users out there that want in-editor/intellisense documentation all you need to do is right click properties on the project folder, select the Libraries category, select ElectroServer5.jar (this is one of the two jar files that you added when you first created the server side project) and click on Edit. In the JavaDoc textbox enter in the path to the folder containing the javadoc html files, specifically the folder containing index.htm, and you should be good to go. If it still says that the javadoc is missing then you may have to exit NetBeans and delete the NetBeans cache folder located at %userdirectory%\.netbeans\6.0\var\cache. Non NetBeans users should have a similar option for setting up javadocs, so check your manual.

Cheers!

Anthony

[tcarr]

Thanks for the instructions! I'll verify them (will appreciate that myself!) and then add them to the manual's article on how to use NetBeans.