Easing/Automating the Creation of Manuals, Web Pages, Packages, etc. for Public Release

Question

Hi,

I have no problem creating software. I have dozens of projects that I would be more than happy to release to the public. The problem is that after I put the finishing touches on something (eg final release build), I end up blocked because it’s not as simple as just putting an EXE on the Internet for people to download. I have difficulty taking the next step of writing up a manual (I’m lucky if I can bang out a README.TXT, let alone a full on CHM/PDF or something), a web page for the app, and basically preparing it for public release.

I’m looking for something to help with the release process. Is/are there any guides/checklists, or preferably software or something that can help make this process easier, ie automate it so that I don’t have to go through every detail manually for each project I release?

Thanks a lot.

(I saw the Release documentation question, but the answers were as helpful for my situation as I was hoping.)

p.s. I remember my disappointment when I first learned that JavaDoc/Doxygen/etc. were helpful in creating the source documentation rather than the user manuals. :(

Answer 1

Writing an user manual can't be automated, you have to write it yourself.

There are tools however that make the process less painful. I personally like Sphinx very much because it's easy to learn, the markup is simple and readable, and it can output to many formats (HTML, HTML with tags for compiling CHM, PDF, etc...).

The automatic API documentation functionality (similar to Doxygen) only works with Python for the moment, but support for other languages is on the way for the next version.