Enhanced Qt Documentation going live on Qt Developer Network

For decades Qt developers all over the world have been praising the quality of our documentation. The online version is by far the most popular of  our websites, visited by hundreds of thousands developers every month. The content is fantastic and we want to take it even further by carefully adding a bouquet of modern web features.

Up until now, our documentation team published the content for users to read and there were no easy options to add additional information. With the Qt Developer Network we now have a collection of useful features at our disposal ready to enhance the current online documentation. Some features are available to registered users only, others don't require a sign-up.

So, while we have added some features to our docs content as part of putting it on Qt Developer Network, no changes are being made to the documentation itself. Also, the style of documentation that Qt developers know today will remain on doc.qt.nokia.com for many months to come.

Documentation Notes

The most exciting new feature we are adding for Docs on Qt Developer Network is the possibility to comment on each and every page. Every registered DevNet user now has the option to add extra content to the documentation, be it "informative", "best practice" or a "cool hack". We apply a rating and reporting system to ensure the quality and validity of these notes.

By opening up this new channel to our users, we want to grow a Qt-centric knowledge base connected to our documentation and also help your feedback and corrections reach the team writing our documentation in a more direct manner.

Docmarks

All registered DevNet users can now bookmark classes directly on the site and their references are shown in the personal sidebar for convenient access. We believe that this feature will make it easy for developers to access the documentation for classes they work with most frequently without a lot of typing.

Search

With the new release of Docs on the Qt Developer Network, we also make an improved search engine available to Qt developers. All classes are accessible as auto-suggestions taking users to the right page in a single click.

In addition, the documentation pages are also included in the site-wide search which returns all results for a query sorted by content type.

Site-Wide Features

Like all other content on the site, each documentation page can be tagged and rated by registered users. The tagging functionality is particularly important for content discovery and we already make use of it for auto-suggesting related content.

Every activity on the Qt Developer Network is rewarded with points which are tied to a series of ranks. With this release, we extend the system to contributions to the documentation as well.

Simple Mode

For users wanting a purer version of the documentation on the Qt Developer Network, we have implemented an option we call "Simple Mode". Once this is enabled, the tagging and rating box as well as the Documentation Notes will be hidden.

Currently, this functionality is only available to users logged in but will be extended to all visitors soon.

More Information

If you want to learn more, take a look at a more detailed article on the blog over at the Qt Developer Network or read about the inner workings and changes under the hood that made all of this possible in Morten's blog on Qt Labs.

As usual, let us know what you think in the comments or in the forums!


Blog Topics:

Comments