DJavadoc

Dynamic Javadoc is a derivative of Erik Berglunds DJavadoc Ph.D. research project at the Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University, Sweden. The DJavadoc project is a combined Software Engineering (SE) / Human Machine Interaction (HMI) project, looking at dynamic layout dimensions to improve reading of work-related texts. The DJavadoc project focus is to enable user-controlled concentration of texts (giving multiple views of the same material) in information repositories, such as the Javadoc generated reference documentation.

The features and interaction principles in DJavadoc are explained below. All DJavadoc extensions to Javadoc is copyright © 1999 Erik Berglund.

DJavadoc Features

Beyond what Javadoc provides, DJavadoc enables you to:

• Remove parts of the class documents to reduce manual scrolling
• Locally open and close descriptions removed sections by direct manipulation
• Save bookmarks to Java classes in the documentation
• Filter out deprecated members
• Copy specially design member strings of members directly to the clipboard (one short and one long version) - only works with IE 5 unfortunately.
• Open more than one package at the same time

However, DJavadoc requires Internet Explorer (IE) 4 for most of its functionality and IE 5 for the clipboard interaction. Originally, most of the functionality needed was not supported by W3C standards, back in 1998 when the system was first designed. Now, the document object mode (DOM) standard handles the type of object access the DJavadoc uses but the system has not been adapted to DOM yet. Mozilla, that is Netscape 6, supports DOM.

DJavadoc Interaction

How to use the features in DJavadoc.

• Remove parts of the class documents to reduce manual scrolling
• Filter out deprecated members

At the top of the left-hand frame you will find the three possible alternatives represented by the Settings | All | My hyperlinks. Click on Settings to open the settings map and access the information model. By checking on or off certain elements you remove or include those sections. Here you can also check off deprecated to filter deprecated members from the member summaries. The deprecated members will not be removed from the summaries, they will be grayed-out, that is fade into the background.

• Locally open and close descriptions removed sections by direct manipulation

In the class documents, member hyperlinks and the title class name hyperlink open or close the underlying description (depending upon the settings you have). Click on member hyperlink and class document title.

• Save bookmarks to Java classes in the documentation

Right-click in IE 5 on hyperlinks to class documents (class names) in the class document and in the All-map to save bookmarks. (only works in IE 5).
or Alt-click (press alt while left-clicking).

The background of the class name will flash with this color:

To access the bookmarks, click on the Settings | All | My My-map.

• Copy specially design member strings of members directly to the clipboard (one short and one long version) - only works with IE 5 unfortunately.

Open the member description, that is click on a member hyperlink
Click on the Copy -> or mark and copy by standard Windows copy mechanism

The background of the string you copy will flash with this color:

• Open more than one package at the same time

As you can see in the left-frame, there are + signs before the package names. Click on the + to open the package. you can open as many as you like.