Re: [Techshoret] How to get Android's documentation appearance (http://developer.android.com)

[Laura Lemay <lemay -at- lauralemay -dot- com>]

I don't know specifically how Google does their android docs -- I haven't worked there.  But we did something extremely similar for the developer documentation at Yahoo, and it was all hand-coded in HTML/CSS/Javascript/PHP, with the API reference docs generated out of the code from custom versions of Javadoc and doxygen developed in-house.   The entire doc set was built from code and HTML source as if it were an application.  Writers were expected to behave like engineers and work in the source, check everything into a source code control system, and do local builds to ensure new edits and changes did not break the overall build.  We used no GUI tools more sophisticated than Dreamweaver.

I designed most of this system myself, with the goal to get the docs as close to the source as possible, and to be able to do continuous integration and frequent releases.  In my experience it's easier to maintain developer docs if there are fewer people and fewer barriers between the developers and the docs. In this world writers *are* developers, are fully integrated into developer teams, and are using most of the same tools.  The tradeoff is that you lose the power of the high-level documentation tools for writing, formatting, review, indexing, and so on.  We worked specifically with writers who were comfortable in the code.  Obviously this isn't a solution that isn't going to work with a lot of companies, especially those who are still doing "traditional" documentation and help.  

Given the very high level of technical geekery at Google, I would assume they are doing something similar and it's all an internally-built custom system. 

Laura


On Jun 29, 2011, at 6:44 AM, SB wrote:

> Posting on behalf of a friend and colleague.
> **
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I have recently had a couple of people ask me how to copy the documentation
> appearance of Android (http://developer.android.com) for their own
> documentation, especially for SDK documentation and developers guide
> documentation:
> 
> e.g.,
> 
> http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
> 
> http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.1-highlights.html
> 
> Fairly recently there was a thread on this in the APIWriters forum (
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/APIWriters/message/506).
> 
> I asked the thread initiator if she received a complete and final answer,
> and she said:
> 
> Not really! Did not figure it out yet.
> It is partially javadoc and
> some plug-ins in Eclipse and/or visual studio.
> Can't figure it out completely yet. Still studying this.
> 
> Does anybody know the documentation appearance of Android was achieved? I
> would like to give somebody some direction on this today.
> 
> TIA
> 
> Regards,
> 
> avraham
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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