Documentation needed for XML User Interface Widgets

[enchev]

From @dskaggs on March 2, 2016 11:23

There is nowhere on the documentation site that I have found that provides documentation on the user interface widgets. The documentation should include at a minimum for every XML element:

• Any required nesting (ie: this can only be inside an element
• Complete list of attributes that can be used on the element (including OS-specific items)
• Whether attributes are required or optional
• List of acceptable values for each attribute (if applicable)
• List of and links to child elements that can/must be included

Using the ActionBar and ActionItem as an example, there are some examples in the How-To article (https://docs.nativescript.org/ApiReference/ui/action-bar/HOW-TO) and information about the programmatic API it exposes (https://docs.nativescript.org/ApiReference/ui/action-bar/ActionItem), but nowhere is there comprehensive documentation of the XML widget.

Continuing with the ActionItem example, I have the XSD plugged into WebStorm to get a measure of tag/node completion help. Even so, it does not include things like ios.systemIcon or even tap. I had to find out about those things from examples spread all over various blogs and examples (see attached screenshot). In order for developers to be the most productive (especially when they are just coming to NativeScript), all this information needs to be presented in a central, easy to use place.

Copied from original issue: NativeScript/NativeScript#1685

[dskaggs]

Any updates on plans for these docs?

As a follow-up, this morning I was working with a ListPicker component...one of the most basic things you can do. I had to do a Google search and read through some buried thread in the NativeScript Google group to find out what the attribute name was to even add a tap action to the XML markup. C'mon folks, if you want people to be able to build applications with NativeScript, you've got to have a comprehensive doc site listing how we interact with your components and APIs.