You have spent weeks writing an amazing open source library or application and have spent hours cleaning up the code to make it look as good as possible. You might think that this is the end of your work but actually you are just about to finish your work. To be a successful developer and publisher of your open source work, you need to make sure that people can find, read and use your code easily. This process is known as documentation and there are some great tools available to help you with this that range from automatically generated to manually written.
When you are writing the code for the software, it is essential to add comments to that code so that you can understand them later. It is true that some people write the comments just before they publish or release their code. But it is not a good idea because you may have to deal with complex codes. And it would help if you used the comments to remember what you have done before when dealing with those complex codes.
Source code documentation is an essential step in software development that describes and explains source code. Developers have to keep track of documentation because documentation is a very important piece of project management. With the speed at which the programming language is evolving, it has become imperative for programmers to document their code lines. Documentation and coding go hand in hand for a programmer to acquire best source code documentation tool.
It is a known fact that documentation helps developers remember the code and understand it more clearly. Many developers even feel documentation is to a project what documentation is to a human. But often, many developers find it difficult to document a good source code, for this several open source software exist. Let’s explore some of the best open source tools for writing code documentation and creating clear understandable instructions for the future generation programmers.
Software documentation
Software documentation is a long and tedious procedure, but an important one to keep your software project on track. Let’s first go through the guidelines you need to follow for the documentation and learn how it will benefit you.
Guidelines to follow through
1. Reader’s View: Documentation should be curated from a reader’s point of view. This makes the reader understand the documentation and work on it better.
2. Unambiguous: Documentation should be unambiguous, clear, precise, and to the point.
3. Repetition: Documentation should not include any repetition. It should be concise. 4. Standardized: Documentation should be in the standard industry format.
5. Updated: Avoid having pending things be added to the document. Your documentation should be up to date with the recent changes.
6. Redundancy: Documents that are outdated should be removed after finalizing all added content parts. This will just keep the final document consisting of all required information.
Apiary (for API use)
As well as being a place where bees live, Apiary is a dedicated host for API documentation. Write in markdown, add mock API calls and Apiary collates that into something like you see below:
Anyone can test the API without having to go into the app or actually program a call, which makes it a super accessible way to share your API, document it in-depth, and boast about what it can do.
MarkdownPad (Windows)
With a free and premium version — both with a ton of great features — MarkdownPad is the most popular markdown editor for Windows. It’s optimized for blog posts, websites, articles, READMEs, and, of course, software documentation.
You can get MarkdownPad for free, or get the premium version for $14.95.
iA Writer (Mac)
iA Writer is a simple, beautiful markdown editor with a library feature meaning you can easily reference back other documents in the sidebar. It’s missing internal links between documents like you’d expect there to be in software docs, but you can always do a pass on those when it’s in its final form (that is, if it’s going to end up on the internet in a site).
If you write your whole documentation in one, broken-up page, you can use page jump anchors to help users navigate.
iA Writer costs $9.99 from the Mac App Store.
ProProfs Knowledge Base
ProProfs Knowledge Base is a fantastic little tool for all stages of document creation; from writing and editing, to customizing, setting workflows, and publishing. You can add multimedia, import existing content from word docs, PDF, or PPTs, save multiple versions of the document, and restore them when required.
But the real beauty of this tool lies in its useability. Anyone and everyone can use it to write software documentation. Whether you’ve been documenting software for years or have only recently started, it’s an incredibly simple and easy to use tool.
ProProfs is free to use, or you can upgrade to the premium package which is $112 per month.
SimpleMDE (browser)
While you can technically write markdown in any text editor because it is a way to format plain text, not strictly a ‘tool’, it won’t surprise you that it’s also possible in your browser! SimpleMDE is a both a functional markdown editor built on JavaScript and an open-source project to learn from and adapt for your own use, if necessary.
SimpleMDE is 100% free! Get the source on GitHub here.
reStructuredText editors
Markdown is one of the two most commonly used languages for writing software documentation, but there’s another we’ve not looked at so far, and that’s reStructuredText. It’s very similar to markdown, but worth learning for software documentation purposes.
Docutils, the creator of reStructuredText, has put together a list of reStructuredText editors here, which includes:
- A plugin for vim
- Emacs (in rst mode)
- A plugin for Eclipse
- A plugin for TextWrangler/BBEdit
- NoTex (for browsers)
The point of reStructuredText is that it’s easy to convert between different formats, especially from plain text to a static website. See more info here.
Confluence’s Atlassian
Confluence’s developer, Atlassian, refers to the tool as a “team workspace where knowledge and collaboration meet.”
Confluence is another all-encompassing knowledge management solution, with software documentation being one of the tool’s main focuses. The focus on collaboration means all stakeholders will have a hand in creating accurate, comprehensive, and user-friendly software documentation.
Templates also ensure team “spaces” and “pages” (i.e., knowledge base sections and individual documents) stay organized and uniform. Though customizable, Confluence’s templates are designed with specific use cases in mind — once again, including software documentation.
Confluence Features
- Real-time collaborative features and task management processes keep all team members on the same page
- Personalized feeds keep stakeholders focused on important documentation tasks and processes
- Integration with all Atlassian tools (and thousands of others) allows seamless delivery of documentation
Confluence Pricing
- Free: Up to 10 users, 2GB of storage, and basic documentation features
- Standard: $5/month per user, up to 20,000 users, 250GB of storage
- Premium: $10/month per user, up to 20,000 users, unlimited storage
- Enterprise option available
Process Street
Process Street is a business process management tool that allows teams to develop workflows, checklists, and other process documentation for recurring procedures within their organization.
Focusing on software documentation, Process Street serves two purposes:
For one, it allows teams to create procedural guides to help users navigate a piece of software, or a specific feature within a given tool. Secondly, dev teams can use Process Street to outline their own development processes — and to track their progress over time.
Process Street’s unique drag-and-drop interface allows teams to develop various software document templates, and to adjust them to specific use cases with ease. This versatility makes it a key choice for teams looking to streamline their software documentation processes.
Process Street Features
- Widgets make adding new content elements to documentation simple and easy
- Customizable templates provide structure to documents while allows teams to tweak them as necessary
- Process management and performance analytics allow for continuous improvement of software documentation workflows
Process Street Pricing
- Free for up to 5 full team members and 5 workflows
- Pro: $25/month per user, unlimited full users, and intensive customer support
- Enterprise option available
Bit.ai
Bit.ai is a powerful tool for workplace and document collaboration.
In fact, its heavy focus on interactivity and real-time collaboration is what makes Bit.ai such a prime choice for software documentation purposes.
On the developer’s side, dev teams can add code blocks and other elements to documents as needed — all while working with other team members to improve the documentation in question. Less technical teams can also easily collaborate in-doc, adding multimedia and other content to software documentation as appropriate.
For end-users, the end result is an interactive document that delivers the exact information they need in the most convenient and digestible way possible.
Bit.ai Features
- Minimalist, Markdown-supported interface allows teams to create and edit documentation to their liking without distraction
- Portals, rooms, and passwords can all be used to allow or disallow access to certain documents
- Integrates with over 100 other tools
Bit.ai Pricing
- Free for up to 5 members, 50 documents, and 1GB storage
- Pro Plan: $8/month per user, unlimited users and documents, and 500GB storage
- Business Plan: $15/month per user for advanced tracking, access to customer success and support teams
- Enterprise Plan available
Tettra
Tettra is an internal, corporate wiki tool that focuses on delivering need to know answers to common questions as quickly as possible.
At the most basic level, Tettra acts as a sort of Q&A forum on which team members can ask and answer technical and operational questions for all to see. Basically, you can think of it as an organization-specific Quora.
For software documentation purposes, Tettra allows teams to collect frequently asked questions regarding product specs, technical processes, and troubleshooting info all in one place. Internal users can then use the Q&A database to find the information they need without having to reach out to the dev team or other SMEs.
Tettra Features
- Content verification ensures answers are accurate and comprehensive — and provides SMEs the opportunity to expand on documentation as needed
- Slack and MS Teams integrations allows users to find answers directly within these tools
- Usage analytics allows teams and SMEs to make improvements to documentation over time
Tettra Pricing
- Free for up to 10 users, basic Q&A features
- Scaling: $8.33/month per user, up to 250 users, for all features
- Enterprise available
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.
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.
Advantages of software documentation
1. Tracking: The main objective of documentation is to keep track of all parts of a software project.
2. Maintenance: While you have documentation, the maintenance of the project is easier.
3. Understanding: Documentation makes it easier for learners or programmers other than the developers to understand the codes and working of the software.
4. Quality: Documentation obviously improves the quality of the software.
5. Assistance: The documentation process assists users during user training.
6. Knowledge sharing: Since everything is documented, it ensures knowledge being shared and understood by everyone. Anyone can read the documentation and easily track all the work and usage of code snippets at different parts of the software. This will cut down costs and efforts made in training new people if someone leaves the organization.
Conclusion
Source code documentation is an important project to ensure ease of support and maintenance when source code is shared or deployed across teams. Documenting a source code can be tedious and boring, but if done diligently, it can help enforce coding standards, provide quick access to vital information, and improve the overall quality of a software product.
Documentation is an essential part of any software project. It is also a never ending process. Good documentation doesn’t exist for a long time period. It changes with the development environment, it changes with the product and it changes with the thoughts of developers.