# The Jedi Tutorial

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### Documenting your sources

Now that the code for our application is complete, it is time wo write some documentation. Java provides a standard way to write documentation and a tool to transform it into nicely formated html. Jedi also supports this feature.
In our HelloWorld class, click on the tab 'Class: JavaDoc' to switch the editor to the javadoc mode. The toolbar contains a few icons for the standard javadoc tags. Click on the 'author' icon and enter your name in the text editor. Then click the 'version' icon and enter a version number, e.g. '`0.77.2beta5pl44`'. You may also type in some text describing the class. Similarly, documentation for each method can be created using the 'Method: JavaDoc' tab. Standard tags for methods appear in the toolbar and you can write some method documentation now. When you are done, click the 'compile' icon.

The 'javadoc' window will show up. It contains a lot of settings, most of which we will ignore now. What needs to be set is the path of the 'javadoc' tool in the topmost line. Set it to '`<javadir>/bin/javadoc`'. Then check the 'include author' and 'include version' boxes below. Now set the target directory, where you want the docs to be created. The string field is located at the top of the lower half. You can enter a path manually or use the filerequester button. Choose a path of your preference, but make sure you have write access. Now hit the 'Generate JavaDoc' button. Jedi will display what it is doing and what files are created. You can then browse them using Netscape or any html-browser.

### Accessing your own documentation

The previous section of this tutorial has introduced Jedi's context help feature. It can not only be used to gain quick access to JDK documentation, you can also configure it to access your newly created documentation. To do this, open the 'JavaDoc API Directories' panel from the 'Prefs' menu again. Add the path you just stated as target directory when creating your documentation. Then hit 'Ok'. Jedi will generate a new index (which will again take some time).
Now we are ready to test it. Select the '`main`' method in the browser, activate the editor and type '`main`', move the cursor 1 character to the left (so that is over the '`main`') and push (not release) the right button over the help icon. You should see the following choice:

`main(java.lang.String[]) of class helloworld.HelloWorld`

Select it and a browser should pop up, showing the documentation for your class (scroll to the top to see the class docs you just wrote). If that works, delete the word '`main`' and remove the new path from the 'JavaDoc API directories'. These were just for testing. You can of course add custom paths again later, when you have written some real documentation. Note, however, that Jedi needs to rebuild its index whenever documentation changes.

previous | 30.08.1999 | next