The missing documentation tool for your Angular application

#Features

• Clean, simple design — With Compodoc, the main endpoints are on the left side of your documentation, and all the content on the right side

• Beautiful themes — 7 themes are available from famous documentation tools like Gitbook, Read the Docs or projects like Vagrant, Laravel, Postmark and Stripe.

• Search — Compodoc include a powerful search engine (lunr.js) for easily finding your information

• Automatic table of contents - API table of contents is generated using elements found during files parsing

• Open-source and on npm - Use it directly in your project using npm and one script, that's it !

• A local tool - No server needed, no sources uploaded online

• JSDoc light support - Support of @param, @returns, @link and @example tags

• Documentation coverage - Get the documentation coverage report of your project

• Angular-CLI friendly - Compodoc support out of the box Angular-CLI projects

Live Demo

Demo : documentation generated for TodoMVC Angular Compodoc demo project

Static Demo

Using SoundCloud API client / Angular2 project and default theme (gitbook)

README page	Overview page
Modules page	Single module page
Component page	Source code tab
Search page	Coverage report

Why this tool ?

Because we doesn't find our needs on existing tools. We want to have a single place where there is :

• api documentation of code
• component(s), directive(s), pipe(s), ... documentation
• general documentation (*.md files)

Why not a SPA for outputed documentation ?

KISS principle or shortly "Keep it simple". We think static html files are simpler than another SPA inside an "SPA documentation".

Who's using Compodoc ?

• angular-seed
• angular-calendar

These are some that we know of. Want your project listed here ? Drop us a line.

Table of Contents

• Node.js versions
• Angular-CLI
• Getting Started with compodoc
  • Install
  • Usage
  • Local installation
• Themes
• Common use cases
  • Render documentation
  • Serve generated documentation with compodoc
  • Render documentation, and serve it with compodoc
  • Styling the documentation
  • Documentation of each component
  • Syntax highlighting in markdown files
  • Excluding files
• Remark for comments
• Remark for routes
• Roadmap
• Extensions
• Contributing
• Contributors
• Resources
• License

Node.js versions

Compodoc is tested with only LTS versions : v6.9.4 & v4.7.1

Angular-CLI

Compodoc supports last Angular-CLI version : 1.0.0-beta-26

Just run Compodoc in a fresh or existing project.

Getting Started with compodoc

Install

Install from npm :

npm install -g compodoc

Usage

$ compodoc --help

Usage: compodoc  [options]

Options:

  -h, --help                         output usage information
  -V, --version                      output the version number
  -p, --tsconfig [config]            A tsconfig.json file
  -d, --output [folder]              Where to store the generated documentation
  -y, --extTheme [file]              External styling theme
  -n, --name [name]                  Title documentation
  -a, --assetsFolder [folder]        External assets folder to copy in generated documentation folder
  -o, --open                         Open the generated documentation
  -t, --silent                       In silent mode, log messages aren't logged in the console
  -s, --serve                        Serve generated documentation (default https://localhost:8080/)
  -r, --port [port]                  Change default serving port
  --theme [theme]                    Choose one of available themes, default is 'gitbook' (laravel, original, postmark, readthedocs, stripe, vagrant)
  --hideGenerator                    Do not print the Compodoc link at the bottom of the page
  --disableSourceCode                Do not add source code tab
  --disableGraph                     Disable rendering of the dependency graph
  --disableCoverage                  Do not add the documentation coverage report
  --disablePrivateOrInternalSupport  Do not show private or @internal in generated documentation

Local installation

npm install --save-dev compodoc

Define a script task for it in your package.json :

"scripts": {
  "compodoc": "./node_modules/.bin/compodoc -p src/tsconfig.json"
}

and run it like a normal npm script :

npm run compodoc

Themes

Default (gitbook)	Laravel
Readthedocs	Stripe
Vagrant	Postmark
Original

Common use cases

Render documentation

Documentation is generated in default output folder, then run your HTTP server in that folder.

compodoc -p src/tsconfig.json

Render documentation while providing source folder

compodoc src -p src/tsconfig.json

Serve generated documentation with compodoc

Documentation was generated in default output folder or a specific one, the local HTTP server is launched at https://localhost:8080

compodoc -s

or

compodoc -s -d ./doc

Render documentation, and serve it with compodoc

Documentation is generated in default output folder, and a local HTTP server is available at https://localhost:8080

compodoc -p src/tsconfig.json -s

Styling the documentation

compodoc -p src/tsconfig.json -y your_theme_styles/

Inside your folder you need to provide at least a style.css file with these 5 imports as below.

@import "./reset.css";
@import "./bootstrap.min.css";
@import "./bootstrap-card.css";
@import "./font-awesome.min.css";
@import "./compodoc.css";

Compodoc use bootstrap 3.3.7. You can customize Compodoc easily.

bootswatch.com can be a good starting point. If you want to override the default theme, just provide a bootstrap.min.css file, and it will override the default one.

└── your_theme_styles/
    ├── style.css // the main css file with default imports
    └── bootstrap.min.css // your bootstrap theme

Documentation of each component

A comment description in xxx.component.ts file, between JSDoc comments can be a little short.

Compodoc search for a default README.md file inside the root folder of each component, and add it inside a tab in the component page.

└── my-component/
    ├── my.component.ts
    ├── my.component.spec.ts
    ├── my.component.scss|css
    ├── my.component.html
    └── README.md

The live demo as a component documented in that way : TodoMVC Angular Compodoc demo / todo component

Remark for comments

Compodoc use Typescript AST parser and it's internal APIs, so the comments have to be JSDoc comments :

/**
 * Supported comment
 */

These ones are not supported :

/*
 * unsupported comment
 */

/*
  unsupported comment
 */

// unsupported comment

Currently Compodoc only support these JSDoc tags :

• @param
• @returns
• @example
• @link

/**
 * @param {string} target  The target to process see {@link Todo}
 *
 * @example
 * This is a good example
 * processTarget('yo')
 *
 * @returns      The processed target number
 */
function processTarget(target:string):number;

For @link you can use this three syntax like JSDoc:

• for an internal reference

{@link Todo}
[Todo]{@link Todo}
{@link Todo|TodoClass}

• for an external link

[Google]{@link https://www.google.com}
{@link https://www.apple.com|Apple}
{@link https://github.com GitHub}

For giving an example on directives, components and pipes decorators, use @example or markdown :

/**
 * Shows all events on a given day. Example usage:
 *
 * ```
 * <mwl-calendar-day-view
 *  [viewDate]="viewDate"
 *  [events]="events">
 * </mwl-calendar-day-view>
 * ```
 */

 /**
  * Shows all events on a given day. Example usage:
  *
  * @example
  * ;
  * 
  */

Remark for routes

Follow the style guide and provide a const of type 'Routes' :

const APP_ROUTES: Routes = [
    { path: 'about', component: AboutComponent },
    { path: '', component: HomeComponent}
];

...

RouterModule.forRoot(APP_ROUTES)

Syntax highlighting in markdown files

Compodoc use Marked for markdown parsing and compiling to html. highlight.js has been added for supporting syntax highlighting.

Just use a normal code block in your markdown with correct language : Github help

The integrated languages are : json, bash, javascript, markdown, html, typescript

Excluding files

For excluding files from the documentation, simply use the exports property of tsconfig.json file.

Roadmap

• [ ] handle external markdown files as "functional" documentation
• [ ] watch/recompile feature while serving documentation
• [ ] support for Angular 1.5+ projects written in Typescript
• [x] documentation coverage
• [x] routes
• [x] classes
• [x] module(s) page(s) with comments
• [x] component(s) page(s) with comments, API, class
• [x] directives
• [x] injectables
• [x] interfaces
• [x] pipes

Extensions

Gulp

There is a plugin available to run Compodoc with Gulp. You can find it on NPM:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/gulp-compodoc

JHispter

There is a JHipster module available to run Compodoc with JHipster. You can find it on NPM:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/generator-jhipster-compodoc

Contributing

Want to file a bug, contribute some code, or improve documentation? Excellent !

Read up on our guidelines for contributing.

Contributors

||| :---: |:---: |:---: |:---: |:---: |:---: | vogloblinsky |daniele-zurico|mattlewis92

Resources

Inspired by stuff from angular2-dependencies-graph, ng-bootstrap

Logo designed using Book vector designed by Freepik

License

Everything in this repo is MIT License unless otherwise specified.

MIT © 2016 - Vincent Ogloblinsky