OrthoDocs

OpenSCAD documentation generator

OrthoDocs is an API documentation generator and static analysis tool for the OpenSCAD scripting language. For the list of the feature planned and their status see Project status. For an example of the produced documentation see OFL Table of Contents or browse the OFL documentation tree.

For OrthoDocs installation see Installing OrthoDocs.

How to document

OrthoDocs is able to recognize all the public global functions, modules and variables found in the source tree, complete with parameters and their default values. Sources can be passed as files, directories or both. Each source file (here referred to as package) will produce a corresponding API document.

• OrthoDocs basics - documenting uncommented code
• Using decorations - default behavior
• Using custom decorations - customized decoration
• Using comments - documenting existing code

The command line

OrthoDocs is a CLI only utility, the basic invocation is:

orthodocs --src-root «path to source-root directory» --doc-root «path to document-root» «list of files and/or directory relative to source-root»

OrthoDocs will search in all the input directories for any scad file, the resulting file list being merged with the files eventually passed as positional and analyzed. The analysis results will be used for producing a number of Markdown documents (one for each source file analyzed).

Assuming the following directory tree:

/home/
└── giampa/
    └── example/
        └── sources/
            ├── 2d.scad
            ├── annotated.scad
            ├── bbox.scad
            ├── type_trait.scad
            └── uncommented.scad

the following command executed in the directory «/home/giampa»

/home/giampa $ orthodocs --src-root example/sources --doc-root example/docs

will scan all the SCAD sources in the source-root and produce the consequent documents in the doc-root

/home/
└── giampa/
    └── example/
        ├── docs/
        │   ├── 2d.md
        │   ├── annotated.md
        │   ├── bbox.md
        │   ├── type_trait.md
        │   └── uncommented.md
        └── sources/
            ├── 2d.scad
            ├── annotated.scad
            ├── bbox.scad
            ├── type_trait.scad
            └── uncommented.scad

If we want to keep the same source-root while documenting only a subset of the present sources the following command

/home/giampa $ orthodocs --src-root example/sources --doc-root example/docs annotated.scad uncommented.scad

will produce

/home/
└── giampa/
    └── example/
        ├── docs/
        │   ├── annotated.md
        │   └── uncommented.md
        └── sources/
            ├── 2d.scad
            ├── annotated.scad
            ├── bbox.scad
            ├── type_trait.scad
            └── uncommented.scad

Full command options

For more complex tasks consult the full command option list:

Option	Description
-a,--admonitions	FLAG - When this flag is enabled any admonition found in annotations will be enriched with a corresponding emoji
--data-dir	OPTION - Absolute path to data directory: touch only if you know what you do
--decorations	OPTION - Defines the prefix used inside comments to distinguish a simple comment from an annotation. Set to '' means no decorations, and all the comments are interpreted as annotations.
-d,--doc-root	OPTION - Specifies the target document tree root either as absolute or current directory relative path. It is a mandatory directory parameter and - if not existing - it will be automatically created.
-g,--graphs	OPTION - List of root relative directories where placing dependency graphs. Needs --src-root.
-h,--help	FLAG - Print the help message and exit
-i,--ignore-prefix	OPTION - Ignore this prefix in the Table of Contents when sorting
-o,--orthodox	FLAG - Comments for parameters are preceding their formal definition.
--unorthodox	FLAG - Comments for parameters are following their formal definition.
-p,--private	OPTION - Every documentation item (variable, function or module) prefixed with this string will not be published.
--pd,--pkg-deps	OPTION - Set package dependencies representation by text list or by a dependency graph (possible value text/graph, default to text)
-s,--src-root	OPTION - Source tree root - either an absolute or current directory relative path. It is a mandatory existing directory parameter.
sources	POSITIONAL - source sub-trees and/or files -
-t,--toc	FLAG - Generate a Table of Contents in the document tree root either as absolute or «source tree root» relative path
-V,--verbosity	OPTION - Set the message log verbosity
-v,--version	FLAG - Display program version information and exit

Project status

The list of features expected in the v1 release with their current status:

Feature	Status
admonitions	✔
comment styles	✔
cross-reference	✔
dependency graphs	✔
global values	✔
source license detection	✔
table of contents	✔

Supported OSs

OS	Build	Run	Package
Fedora Linux	✔	✔	✔
macOS	✔	✔	✔
Ubuntu Linux	✔	✔	✔
Windows	✔	✔	✔