As a developer, you know how important it is to plan and write code for your programming project. You may not have realized this, but one of the most important, yet undervalued and underutilized elements of coding, is documentation. Software project documentation is something that many developers and programmers don’t finish or look forward to completing. After all, it’s time consuming and not at all easy! So why bother? Because it’ll save you time down the road of your project.
If you look at the high-quality software that exists today, you will see that good code documentation tools are crucial. If you try to make something without these tools, it will be very difficult to understand your code, and that can lead to multiple errors and inefficiency. And that’s why we created our article about best code documentation tool for code notations.
While coding, we all want to make our code efficient and easy to read. Code documentation is the process of improving your code to make it more readable and easy to understand. But when you have tight deadlines and need to ship the product it becomes rather difficult to invest time in documentation.
Code Documentation Tool: You can create best documentation of any code and can make it very simple so people who are new to a project can easily understand the code using this tool.
What is Software Documentation?
Software documentation is any written document that explains how a piece of software is built, operates, or used. For more complex software, it typically includes a section on general use as well as sections about each of the software’s various functions and features. Documentation comes in many forms, including user tutorials that demonstrate how to perform tasks, printed manuals or books with step-by-step instructions, or knowledge bases and FAQ pages on a company’s website.
Software documentation varies depending on the complexity of the software and the technical knowledge of the audience. For example, it can walk end-users through the basics of a piece of consumer software, assist IT and system administrators with software installation, and help software developers build or update programs.
Types of Software Documentation
There are many types of software documentation, from internal documents only accessible to software developers to user manuals for those who use a piece of software regularly. Two main types of software documentation are developer documentation and software documentation targeted toward the end-user.
Developer Software Documentation
Developers use a specific type of documentation created as part of, or in conjunction with, the software development process. These documents can include release notes that describe features and updates, README files in text documents that offer a brief explanation of the software, system documentation that describes requirements for installation, and API documentation explaining how to integrate and work with an API.
End-User Software Documentation
End-user software documentation provides information about how to install, use, or configure a piece of software. This type of documentation helps people understand how to operate a product. End-user documentation can include user guides, tutorials, troubleshooting manuals, and knowledge bases.
There are areas where the lines blur between different types of software documentation, especially when it comes to technical documentation. An example of this is the minimum system requirements for installing a piece of software. Even though it’s considered a technical document, it falls under end-user documentation because it’s written for software users.
What Are Software Documentation Tools?
Software documentation tools streamline the process of creating and managing documents by making writing or distributing documentation faster and easier.
Many documentation tools give you the ability to publish your documents once complete and distribute documents to internal teams or external users. Some documentation tools offer version control systems so your teams can track changes made over time.
Whatfix
Whatfix is a Digital Adoption Platform that allows you to create step-by-step walkthroughs that act as real-time software documentation by guiding employees through your software. If you already have a knowledge base, you can display your documentation in a self-help widget.
Whatfix is redefining how software documentation is displayed and consumed, with new content embedded directly within your software applications in forms such as interactive guidance, contextual walkthroughs, self-help FAQs, popup notifications and beacons, and more. The platform also allows you to measure the usage and effectiveness of your documentation with user analytics.
Bit.ai
Bit.ai is a documentation collaboration platform that allows you to manage all of your documents in one place. It allows you to create notes, documents, and wikis, and you can manage your company’s documentation across teams or departments.
ProProfs
ProProfs knowledge base software is a knowledge management tool that lets you create searchable online FAQs and help docs. In addition, you can add videos, audio, images, and infographics to your documentation to make your software documentation more interactive and compelling.
Dropbox Paper
Dropbox Paper is an online document workspace that lets you organize and display text, media, and files all in one place. It’s a web-based tool, so it’s accessible as long as you have an internet connection. If you’re already a Dropbox user, you can create and edit documents without leaving Dropbox.
Tettra
Tettra is a tool for internal company use. It’s a wiki and knowledge management system that lets teams create content other employees can read and comment on. This tool is specifically built to work with Slack and features integrations with several other tools, including GSuite, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, and Zapier.
Tallyfy
Tallyfy is workflow and process management software that lets you capture and automate your company’s knowledge. This software offers the ability to see the status of your tasks, and it is built to integrate into many other systems like Slack or Gmail. It also automates the process of tracking document changes.
LiveEdu
If you are reading this, you must be thinking how a social project broadcasting can be a tool for code documentation? The answer lies in the term, “Video code documentation.”
You can broadcast or store your project work directly on Livecoding. By doing this, you will be able to easily allow your team members access to important sections of the project. There are multiple benefits for using Livecoding as a tool to document your code. Some of them are mentioned below:
Video documentation benefits in a nutshell
- It enhances pure text-written documentation and gives better context and understanding to the reader.
- Agile teams can easily keep track of the project changes.
- Technical writers can utilize the video code documentation to understand the project better.
- Developers can invest their saved time in implementing other project functionalities.
Doxygen
Doxygen is a great tool for generating documentation from source code. The tool is aimed at C++, but it can also be used with PHP, Java, Python, etc. With the help of Doxygen, you can create online HTML documentation. It can also be used to generate output in multiple formats, including Unix man pages, PostScript, etc.
The biggest advantage of using Doxygen is that you will have consistency throughout your source code documentation. It can also help you to generate code structure using the undocumented source files. All you need to do is configure it accordingly.
Sphinx
Sphinx is a popular documentation tool for the programmers. It is available under BSD license and support multiple programming languages such as Python, C, and C++. Sphinx is ideal for developers who want to organize their documentation. It can be used for both project documentation and code documentation. Some features of Sphinx include extensive cross-references, multiple output formats, automatic indices, extension support, etc.
Pandoc
Pandoc is not like other code documentation tools out there. It acts as a Swiss Army knife and enables a developer to quickly convert one markup format to another. If you like writing your own code documentation in markup, and quickly want to convert to another format, Pandoc is for you. It has a wide range of document support, including textile, reStrcuturedText, LaTex, ePUB, etc.
Moreover, it offers multiple markdown syntax extensions, including definition lists, tables, footnotes, etc. Check out the official page for a full list of supported extensions and document format.
Dr. Explain
Frontend development also requires documentation to a certain extent. One such tool, Dr. Explain, lets you document app user interface. It filters out the key interface elements and then extracts the associated meta information about each element. Once done, you can modify the extracted information to quickly create an interface documentation.
Document360
We’ll start with our own Document360. Document360 is our very own knowledge base solution which is perfect for creating user manuals. It offers an advanced portal for content producers with a state-of-the-art editor, category manager, and more. You can create up to six levels of categories and subcategories for your content which can easily be rearranged using the drag-and-drop UI.
The Markdown editor lets you focus on writing text-heavy documents but there is also a WYSIWYG editor for those who prefer that functionality. Both editors allow you to add links, images, videos, callouts, code blocks, and more. Never lose your work with Document360’s version history which allows you to roll back to a previous version.
Document360 comes with advanced analytics that allows you to learn where your knowledge base traffic is coming from, what your visitors are looking for and how they’re interacting with your content. Document360 also integrates with a large number of popular apps including ticketing systems like Zendesk and Freshdesk, live chat software like Intercom and Drift, as well as analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Segment.
Document360’s startup plan costs $99 per project per month.
Nuclino
Nuclino is a good way to organize information within teams into workspaces. You can use Nuclino to create beautiful software documentation for your employees or your customers. Workspaces can be public or private. You can bring your content to life with text, images, videos, files, tasks, embeds, code blocks, and more. Write your content even faster with Markdown or use the WYSIWYG editor. You can collaborate in real-time so you can see the changes your team members are making as they type, which means there’s no risk of version conflicts. You can type @ inside an item to link to another page in the knowledge base and use workspaces and clusters to organize items. There’s a powerful search bar that you can type into to find relevant content. Work visually by organizing your team’s content into boards and graphs. Nuclino integrates with a large number of apps including Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox and more. Nuclino’s standard plan costs $5 per user per month.
Pros
- Straightforward organization that helps users find the content they’re looking for.
- Documents can be edited simultaneously, reducing the risk of version conflicts.
Cons
- Lack of formatting options for content.
- No ability to control access at the article level, only at the workspace level.
Software documentation hosting options
It’s no good having just a bunch of text files living on your computer. They need to be accessible by developers and users, which you’re most likely going to do by hosting the docs on the internet since it isn’t the 1980s.
Process Street (for internal use)
For training new developers and keeping your documentation living all in the same place, Process Street is a solid choice for software documentation.
First, you could create a process for writing your documentation, to make sure you capture all the right details and make it as useful as possible.
Using the following easy-to-use features, you can then write up and store your documentation in one single place:
Storing your documentation within Process Street means it can be accessed by everyone in the company. You can share it with others, send it for approval, set reminders to review it, and update it easily.
Conclusion
Documentation generator software is much more than a technical writing tool, it’s an innovative software solution that will help you create better documentation. It integrates seamlessly with your existing software, allowing you to create high-quality end user manuals and provide comprehensive support to your customers. With a documentation software solution you can also edit your existing documents, or even create new ones.
The idea behind code documentation is to make the source code more understandable and maintainable by less experienced engineers. It is simply a way of providing clear and concise descriptions of a code base. Ideally, it should make it easier for less experienced developers to take over the project or update.