IDLdoc 3.2 has been released! Head over to idldoc.idldev.com or automatically update with the Workbench update mechanism. What’s new in IDLdoc 3.2 follows:

1. Added ability to create LaTeX output. Use the TEMPLATE_PREFIX keyword to the IDLDOC command to specify that the LaTeX templates should be used and the COMMENT_STYLE keyword to specify that markup in comments in the source code should be converted to LaTeX in the output:

   idldoc, ..., template_prefix='latex-', comment_style='latex'

   IDLdoc is now completely setup for users to generate documentation in any text-based format they want.

2. Added ability to create documentation for DLM files. IDLdoc will automatically find .dlm files in the ROOT subdirectories and create documentation for them. No special comments in the .dlm file are necessary (or used).

3. Added INDEX_LEVEL keyword to IDLDOC command to control the granularity of the index: 0 for no index; 1 for directories, classes, files, and routines; 2 for level 1 items plus parameters, keywords, fields, properties, and sav file variables

4. Adds links to names of routines and classes found in the Uses section for routines and files.

5. Added color output in the output log for errors and warnings if the COLOR_OUTPUTLOG keyword is set or if the MG_TERMISTTY routine is present and returns true.

6. Miscellaneous small bug fixes.

A new version of IDLdoc (IDLdoc 3.2) will be coming out soon. Make sure you are on the mailing list if you want to participate in the beta and be notified of the release.

New features for this release will include:

1. ability to generate printed documentation i.e. LaTeX to PDF
2. generate documentation for DLMs

And, of course, some bug fixes.

I have a set of LaTeX templates for IDLdoc. I’m still polishing them up a bit, but they will be in IDLdoc 3.2; printed documentation in the form of LaTeX and DocBook output will be the major features.

Here’s an example PDF generated by the IDLdoc trunk. Compare to the DocBook output (PDF) previously mentioned.

The IDL Developer Network RSS feed came alive this morning after being dormant since early January. The three new items are:

Multi-threading whitepaper

A useful whitepaper about the thread pool in IDL.

IDLdoc 3.0 release

This is an old release (we’re on IDLdoc 3.1.1 now), but it’s nice to get some press!

New tutorials

A few new iTools tutorials.

I have been critical of the ITT VIS website (it has been having some extra problems lately), but this is a step in the right direction.

IDL Workbench 7.0.3 arrived today via the automatic software update mechanism in the Workbench. It provides HDF and netCDF library udpates, better path support, IDLdoc support (rst format only), and even faster code analysis when the Workbench starts. Everything seems to be working well for me during use this afternoon.

Since I’m most excited about the IDLdoc features, I will describe them in a bit more detail after the jump. IDLdoc 3.1 (download) is required to integrate with the Workbench.

Continue reading “IDL Workbench 7.0.3 arrives.”

I have the framework in place to have IDLdoc produce output besides HTML. This has been a long process beginning in IDLdoc 2.0 when I switched to using templates instead of embedding the HTML code in the IDL code. I have started by writing a set of templates for DocBook output, but intend to write a LaTeX set as well.

Here’s an example PDF of IDLdoc output for a library of routines for visualization I’ve been thinking about.

I just released IDLdoc 3.1 (see full release notes are below). As per this short blog post, IDLdoc is getting integrated into the IDL Workbench. This release adds some rst markup features that the IDL Workbench will use — my favorite is to be able to link to images with:

.. image:: filename

IDLdoc will link to the image and also copy the image file into the output directory (if OUTPUT keyword to IDLDOC routine is used).

1. Added ability to reference images in rst markup. IDLdoc will automatically copy referenced images into the output.
2. In rst markup, illegal characters like < and > are automatically converted to character entities.
3. Added :Description: tag for compatibility with IDL Workbench update.
4. Changed default markup parser to rst when format parser is rst.
5. Miscellaneous small bug fixes.

IDLdoc support will be added to the IDL Workbench in an update planned for June. This will add some really cool features for those who use IDLdoc and the Workbench:

1. enhanced hover help on routines with an IDLdoc header
2. content assistant on tag names when writing IDLdoc comments
3. menu item and keyboard shortcut to insert an IDLdoc routine or file header (and preferences to define what tags you want inserted)

The Workbench will recognize comments in the rst format.

There will be an IDLdoc 3.1 release any day now to add some features necessary to support this and fix a couple bugs.

The svn trunk of IDLdoc has a new feature that I’m excited about: the ability to insert images without having to stick ugly HTML in your code header or copying an image manually into the output. This is part of the rst markup style (so it won’t work unless you set markup_style='rst' in your IDLdoc call or specify it via the “docformat” comment). My goal for the rst markup style is to eliminate any need to put HTML in the code header. I don’t think you should have to make the code header look ugly in order to make the documentation look good.

In the theme river code in the previous article, the header for the routine contains:

;    This will produce a result like .. image:: themeriver.png

IDLdoc grabs themeriver.png (relative to the location of the source code file), copies it to the output, and replaces .. image:: themeriver.png with a link to the copy of the image (see output).

If you want to try this, you have to checkout the IDLdoc source code using Subversion:

svn co http://svn.idldev.com/idldoc/trunk

Put the “src” directory of the checkout in your IDL path.

It’s now possible (thanks to some help from engineers at ITT VIS) to get IDLdoc updates via the update mechanism built into the IDL Workbench. This means that you can add a new “Remote update site” that is queried for new updates when you start the Workbench. I think this is a really interesting way to distribute software; I hope I can “subscribe” to other IDL libraries in the future.

For those experienced in getting Eclipse plugins, the URL is

http://updates.idldev.com

For more detailed instructions, see the Workench Updates page on the IDLdoc project site.

One note: if you already have IDLdoc in your !path, you might have to remove it from your path to see the new version.