What it is
A modular PHP system for creating documentation. You create modules for documentation elements (installation steps, buttons, screens, etc.) and then refer to them instead of having to copy/paste information you’d want to have in 2 or more places. For example, you have an application that has buttons on a toolbar which appears on several screens. You define each button, define the toolbar and include the buttons, then define the screens and include the toolbar which in turn includes the buttons. It can run as dynamic PHP, including everything on the fly or it can output static HTML that you can include in your software distribution.
What it is NOT
A system for documenting PHP code (like JavaDoc).
Who it’s for
Anyone who knows some PHP and needs to write some documentation.
Why I built it
I needed to write some docs for my Tasks and Photos applications and couldn’t find anything suitable so I built this. It isn’t complicated but it works.
My Tasks Pro™ documentation, Tasks documentation and Photos documentation were all created with PHP Doc System. A version of the Tasks Pro™ docs created with PHP Doc System version 1.5 and the source for those docs are available for download as a sample project.
I’ve released it under under the GNU Public License (GPL) in the hopes others will contribute and improve the system.
This project is also hosted on SourceForge.
Enjoy.
On-line Demo
I’ve put up a demo that just shows the sample files included in the 1.5.2 release.
System Requirements
A Windows, Mac, Unix or Linux box capable of running Apache (or IIS on Windows) and PHP version 4.1+.
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Version History/To Do List
1.5.2 – Security Fix
- Verify ?show= as valid choice
1.5 – New features
- Added ‘Related Links’ sidebar
- Created module generator page
- Default and generated source is now XHTML compliant
- More semantically accurate HTML
- Re-did navigation links to be a single function
1.2 – Minor enhancements
- Added Previous and Next links.
- Added option to show module summary on Table of Contents page.
- Changed to long PHP tags.
- Other misc code clean-up.
- Thanks to John Asendorf for his contributions to this release.
1.1 – Cleanup and minor enhancements
- Added Last Modified at the bottom of each page.
- Hide timer on static pages.
1.0 – first public release.
Future Plans: Probably some general clean-up as needed. Nothing specific at this time.