Could we create a conventional way for custom plugins to generate a DSL reference and user guide documentation ala Gradle?

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1

The title sums up the gist of this idea.

I think making it possible for custom plugins to generate documentation would be a good thing. I also think that if this documentation had the same structure and look & feel as the main gradle documentation it would lead to nice synergies and ease the life of a normal developer using the plugin.

I have applied some of the gradle build logic to my custom enterprise plugin and I now have my plugin project generating dsl reference and docbook user guide documentation. This however took some doing and I still have some issues with the fact that a lot of my classes inherit or otherwise reference the gradle api classes and the DSL reference extraction process does not like the fact that my project does not have the gradle source code checked in to its repository and directly accessible.

As I know gradleware is pushing for some plugin development features in the next few releases, I think adding an easy conventional way for plugins to generate dsl and use guide documentation would be very valuable.

2

Hi Matias,

Being able to document plugins well is definitely something that we will do. It’s on the list.

3

Do I dare to ask what release the feature might be targeted for?

4

Impossible to say. We just maintain a prioritised list (which is scrutinised twice during the release cycle) and pull from the top.

It’s unlikely to be extremely soon.

5

sounds like a backlog to me : ). Glad to hear it is in the pipeline. Thank you for the prompt response.

6

Is this idea still in the pipeline? I think it would be a good idea.

Alternatively Matias if you want to put your code out in GitHub or somewhere we might be able to make a decent plugin this.

apply plugin: ‘custom-gradle-dsl’

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