Documentation is a must while programming. There are numerous tools which are used from the very starting of a project, to ensure that the logic behind it is clearly preserved. While the methodology of choosing a particular tool might be subjective, and depends on one’s own need, there are some software tools for documentation that should be in every programmer’s toolkit.
As technology has improved, so have the tools for code documentation. Code documentation tools help developers communicate how each part of the program works together to create a more efficient product. From outlining software design to constructing flowcharts, from script examples to class descriptions, and written functions, a good code documentation tool can do it all.
Tools for Code Documentation is a collection of software tools used to create offline and online documentation for computer resources for end-users and developers of computer programs, it may describe how the software system work such as programmers, analysts or unit testers.
Code documentation tools, also known as document generation or document automation tools, are software applications that automatically create Reference Manual, User Guide or Web Help from the source code comments or from similar text sources.
What Is Software Documentation?
Remember, docs or it didn’t happen. Software documentation is any written document that explains how a piece of software works, why it was built, and how it is intended to be used. Depending on the complexity of your software, your documentation can contain information on the general use of the product and in-depth dives into functions and features.
Software documentation, according to Daniele Procida, can be divided into four categories:
- Learning-oriented tutorials
- Goal-oriented how-to guides
- Understanding-oriented discussions
- Information-oriented reference material
You need all these types of documentation to provide comprehensive instructions for your software product.
WhatFix
WhatFix is a digital adoption platform, aiming to enhance team productivity and overall business outcomes by making it easier for teams to adopt new technology.
It does so by allowing teams to provide interactive, omnichannel documentation and support throughout software onboarding processes.
With WhatFix, teams can deliver dynamic, in-app support to new users — and point them toward further learning as necessary. Users can also access pertinent software documentation directly in-app — making for a streamlined first experience with the tool.
WhatFix Features
- In-app messaging, notifications, and interactive prompts ensure users get the most out of their learning experiences
- Automated personalization delivers information to individual users in multiple ways based on context and preference
- Conditional workflows add to the interactive nature of software documentation — and ensure all users are able to do what they set out to do
WhatFix Pricing
- WhatFix prices its services on an individual basis. Contact them for a quote.
GitHub
GitHub is a cloud-based website and service that stores code and helps developers control and track changes through a version control system called GIT to host and review code. In addition to their repository, they offer GitHub Pages, a website hosting service that takes files directly from a GitHub repository and runs the files through a process that creates a website. This feature gives developers an easy way to create software documentation in plain text or Markdown.
Apiary
Apiary by Oracle is a dedicated host for Application Programming Interface (API) documentation that lets you design, prototype, document, and test APIs. One helpful feature is the ability to prototype an API without written code.
Read the Docs
Read the Docs is open-source documentation software that helps developers build and host documents. It can also build multiple versions of your documents by creating a separate branch or tag in your version control system, which is helpful for making sure your documents stay up to date.
MarkdownPad
MarkdownPad is a full-featured Markdown editor for Windows. This tool allows you to create text-based web content, blog posts, websites, articles, READMEs, and software documentation.
Typora
Typora is a simple document reader and writer that provides support for Markdown — a plain text format that’s easy to read and write. This software appeals to developers who want to remove distractions by hiding unwanted elements, like preview windows. It also has a live preview feature to allow you to focus on your content.
Doxygen
Doxygen is a top-rated tool for generating documentation from annotated C++ sources, and it supports other programming languages. It can generate online documentation and offline reference manuals from specific source files by extracting information directly from the source, creating continuity between your documentation and source code.
Tallyfy
Are you looking to automate tasks between co-workers or clients? You’ve found the right app for that! With Tallyfy – you can automate tasks and business processes – within minutes.
Let’s resume the rest of this article!
Without documentation, software resembles a black box. It is useful and it probably gets the job done, but it can’t be altered based on your needs. Even the best-written software can turn useless if other developers or users are unable to understand it. Documentation is what turns your black box into a glass box.
What does software documentation include?
If you search for the documentation of any big company, Tallyfy included, you will notice that the documentation can consist of the requirements of the system, its architecture, an explanation of the algorithms and code, API specifications and more.
Types of Software Documentation Tools
There are different formats and editors that can be used to write a well-structured documentation. The most common one is documentation written in markdown format. Documentation written in Markdown format can be done either through a Markdown Desktop Text Editor (installed on your local machine), a Markdown In-Browser Online Editor, or Automatic Generation Software Documentation Tools, such as LaTex (generally used by academia and scientific documentation).
Markdown Desktop Editors
Markdown is probably the most widespread form of writing software documentation. It is a lightweight markup language that can easily be converted into HTML or other formats. What makes markdown one of the top choices is the fact that you can use almost any plain text editor to create markdown files.
Different text editors and extensions have been created to make the process of writing markdown even easier. We analyze the most prominent ones below.
Texts
Texts is supported both on Windows and Mac OS. It provides a visual representation of the markdown text, thus making it an easy to use software documentation tool for beginners. You don’t need to remember the markdown syntax and images are visualized directly within the text. Additionally, it provides portability and allows for conversion between different formats such as PDF, Word, ePub etc.
Another great feature that Texts provides is the integration with reference management applications and the bibliography support in standard BibTex format.
The text editor is customizable and you can choose from a set of themes. The only drawback is that it is not free. It costs $19 per user regardless of whether you are purchasing it as a team or as an individual.
A great drawback, however, is that in order to work with Texts, you must first install Pandoc, which is a universal document text converter.
Typora
This text editor is supported on all three main operating systems, Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Unlike Texts, Typora offers a file management system which can connect directly to any cloud service such as Google Drive or Dropbox. The outline panel on the side of the editor makes navigating through documentation much easier.
A noteworthy feature that Typora provides is its seamless live preview. The editor shows the modifiable markdown code only when the cursor is pointing at that specific position. When the cursor leaves the text, the markdown is hidden.
Additionally, Typora provides a range of built-in themes while also allowing users to create their own themes using CSS. The main drawback is that the text editor is currently in beta version and several features might change until the final release version. Many users don’t enjoy getting used to a text editor and then finding out that the new release is completely different from what they have been using all the time.
Since the editor is provided for free only while it is in Beta version, the final release will also result in users having to pay for using the editor.
Haroopad
Haroopad provides cross-platform support just like most of the other editors analyzed so far (Windows, Linux, and Mac OS). Its primary statement is that the experience of using the editor should be the same regardless of the operating system in which it runs.
This editor stands out because it provides some advanced features that most developers would appreciate. It supports vim key binding and more than 100 different programming languages with syntax highlighting.
Haroopad has four different display modes. The default mode features a split screen (Editor:Viewer). Then there are the Reverse (Viewer:Editor), Viewer only and Editor only modes.
A distinguishing feature as a software documentation tool is that it allows developers to draw flowcharts or sequence diagrams in order to visually represent workflows.
This markdown editor is provided for free. However, it seems that work on the GitHub repository has halted for the past two or three years. Haroopad will likely remain in Beta version unless some casual developer decides to complete it.
Visual Studio Code
The primary drawback of Visual Studio Code is that it does not support markdown editing by default. This means you need to install an extension. However, this is done directly from the application and requires no more than two mouse clicks.
What I like about using Visual Studio Code for markdown is that it offers a wide range of extensions for Markdown editing. For example, one extension can have a seamless live preview and also offer a bunch of other useful features. Another extension can offer different themes, whereas another extension provides live document preview on your browser so that you can preview the documentation you are creating as it would be treated as an HTML file.
Finally, VS Code looks very similar to Visual Studio, an application used by most programmers that deal with Microsoft technologies.
SimpleMDE
SimpleMDE is a simple and embeddable javascript markdown editor. The primary advantage is that this software documentation tool is open source and thus its repository can be forked from GitHub. Using it is free and the project can serve as a learning experience for other people to experiment and create their own markdown editor.
The project can be seen on Github or downloaded as a .zip or .tar.gz file. After playing around with it for a bit, we came to the conclusion that this markdown editor might not be as straightforward to use as the other editors and it requires some small technical knowledge from the user’s side.
Its biggest advantage is probably the extensive set of features it has to offer while not having to pay for it.
Sublime Text 3
Sublime Text is one of the most well-known text editors for programmers. It runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Moreover, it comes with a plethora of cool features, but it does not support markdown editing by default.
Out of all the software documentation tools we have compared, Sublime Text is probably the most difficult one to set up. Installation is not straightforward since it first requires the installation of the Sublime Package Control and then the installation of the Markdown Editing Package.
Additionally, this editor comes at a price of $70 per user. If you only need a text editor to write markdown format software documentation, then Sublime Text is probably an overkill. It provides so many features that can be useful to programmers and developers but not as much to web writers.
The price, installation requirements and the set of offered features make this documentation tool a good fit for advanced users that can make the most out of the provided toolset. Inexperienced users who are looking for a simple markdown editor are probably better off with a different one.
Notepad++
Notepad++ is probably one of our favorite text editors. It runs on all three top operating systems and resembles very closely the default Windows Notepad application. However, it comes with a set of more advanced features. It’s a Notepad on steroids.
Asides from supporting different programming languages, Notepad++ allows us to create markdown files and thus use it as a software documentation tool. Certainly, it is not a dedicated application for writing documentation, but if you are already using Notepad++ in your daily work and feel comfortable using it, then why not.
At Tallyfy we also enjoy Notepad++ due to their frequent updates and because it is free.
Inkdrop
Inkdrop is a note taking app for markdown lovers. We were quite hyped when I discovered it, to be honest. The app has a very slick UI and runs on all three main operating systems plus IOS and Android.
Our hype started fading away when we saw that you need to pay $4.99/month or $49.90 yearly. If we compare this note taking app to similar competitors like Evernote, we would say that the price of Inkdrop is quite convenient. However, since most users don’t want to think in terms of markdown when taking notes, people still prefer Evernote to Inkdrop.
Funnily enough, even the design of Inkdrop’s interface is very similar to Evernote’s interface. Furthermore, since most of the data is stored in the cloud, Inkdrop offers a good layer of security through an encryption with a 256-bit AES common key.
In terms of features, it provides a distraction-free setup, with a side-by-side live preview. Additionally, it offers code and syntax highlighting as well as key customizations.
Select a Software Documentation Tools Based on Your Needs
When choosing a software documentation tool, there is no such thing as the “perfect” option.
To make sure you choose the right tool, start by creating a list of crucial features to look for — at the least, your software documentation tool should integrate with other tools to reduce friction and increase productivity across departments.
It should also have options for customization and encourage collaboration. You should also ask your employees how they currently complete tasks to help you choose the right tool and improve adoption when it comes time to start using the new documentation software.
Conclusion
The world of programming is ever expanding. New languages, frameworks, libraries are being developed to solve more complex problems. Facing such a problem is an important step to success, but these challenges requires the developer be efficient and effective in sharing his thoughts or describing the code or solution. Without a proper way to describe the technique you’ve used; you are going to have trouble presenting your solution to other individuals, or in explaining it to your collaborators.
Software documentation tools are tools to create external user and maintenance documentation for computer software, usually in electronic form. Some of these tools can extract what needs to be documented from the source code itself.