Show HN: Create documentation websites from Markdown
github.com
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Seems like it has a lot of dependencies. (docsgen is just one file)
I didn't look into it too much, but it has a very large code base for something that seems fairly simple (from my point of view...)
Could you explain why you would choose hotdoc over my tool, does it have some extra features?
It's a real documentation system rather than just an HTML generator, which is what docsgen seems to be. It supports syntax highlighting, search and DevHelp generation. It maintains a database of symbols and lets you refer to them instead of having to manually look up the link.
And there's also an optional component, hotdoc-server, to allow previewing and editing documentation on-line.
Well, and it ships with lots of documentation.
Because of the dependencies it seems like HotDoc only works on a server? Docsgen has versions for Windows, Mac and Linux without the need to have a server, virtual machine or stuff like that.
This is just the start of docsgen. I have planned code comment parsing, versioning, multi language support and more stuff. Syntax highlighting is almost finished for docsgen as well.
What i'm trying to build is a really lightweight solution that everyone can use without having to setup a lot of things. Docsgen will have a focus on API documentation rather then library documentation which HotDoc seems to focus.
By the way, hotdoc works on any platform where Python runs. In particular, once you've got Python running, pip install hotdoc installs it for you even if you don't have packages for your distribution.
As for API documentation vs Library documentation it just seems like HotDoc is for Library documentation. (Even though it's the tastiest API documentation system) From their examples they are just showing Library documentation sites?
Docsgen is inspired by API docs like DO and PayPal where you have text on left and example request and response on the right. Example: https://developers.digitalocean.com/documentation/v2/
I have trouble finding examples of API documentation sites that uses HotDoc, feel free to link some and i will check them.
As for API, I now see what you mean, you use the term API is a different meaning than I do (remote API vs local API), hence the misunderstaning. No, I don't think hotdoc supports side-by-side documentation and examples at the moment. I think it can be extended to do so, though.