Developer information

Writing documentation

For every new feature, writing documentation is mandatory for the patch to be accepted. The docs are written in an XML dialect similar to XHTML, with a few tags specific to our documentation. For example:


     :help :h help]]]]>
    :help subject
    ]]]]>
    
        
            Open help window.
            The default section is shown unless subject is specified.
            If you need help for a specific topic, try :help overview.
        
    

]]>

creates a new help section for the command :help and for the related key binding, . It also creates help tags for the command, its shortcuts, the key binding, and the general topic, 'help'. These tags enable linking to this section when from other mentions of the topic and from the :help command. The above code displays as:

:help :h help]]> :help subject ]]>

Open help window. The default section is shown unless subject is specified. If you need help for a specific topic, try :help overview.

If you don't know in which file/section you should put some documentation, ask on the mailing list or on #vimperator.

Generating documentation

You can also autogenerate most of the XML help after you have written a new command, mapping or option. For this, use: :echo util.generateHelp(commands.get("addons"), "Extra text")