Main Help → Writing Extensions → Documenting an Extension

Documenting an Extension

You should document all extensions. This documentation can be read by users in GEDitCOM II by choosing the "Documentation..." command in the "Extensions" menu.

Documentation for extensions are written using hypertext mark up methods. Some details on writing documentation are:

  1. You can add any number of mark up files (extension .html or .htm) and cascading style sheet files (extension .css) by using the "New Documentation File..." menu command. These files will appear in the "Documentation" section. The name of the main entry file for the documentation should be provided in the "help" mainfest tag.
  2. You can select any mark up file or cascading style sheet and edit it on the right side of the window.
  3. All documentation files will be saved in the same folder. Thus if one file needs to link to another, you can link with just the file name (e.g., <a href="otherfile.html">Link to another file</a>).
  4. If you need to link to other types of files (most commonly images), you can use the "Import Files..." menu command to import them into the extension (they will appear in "other files" item of the "Properties" section) and then refer to them in documentation files using just their name (no other path information is needed).
  5. Any documentation file can link to external web sites by using a standard link (e.g., http://www.geditcom.com).
  6. If desired, you can link to the built-in GEDitCOM II help files by linking to help://(relpath) where (relpath) is relative path to the internal GEDitCOM II help file. The main issue is determining the file path name. One option is to "Show Package Contents" of the GEDitCOM II application and look for the desired file in the "Contents/Resources/GEDitCOM_Help" folder. The (relpath) should be the path to the file relative to that folder.

If you are writing an extension that also works in GEDitCOM, you should customize the documentation to show appropriate help for users of both GEDitCOM and GEDitCOM II.