[omniORB] Synopsis 0.3 released

[Stephen Davies]

Hi Craig,

I am the 'other' developer for Synopsis. Version 0.3 includes modular
comment parsing and formatting, which has already been used to support the
"//." style comments used in Berlin's sources and the "/**" style used by
javadoc. On top of this you can also use javadoc-style @tags whatever
format you use, although only @see has been implemented so far.

Adding further styles is very possible, as is adding other features we do
not currently support such as inline inheritance graphs on the Class
pages. Indeed, version 0.4 may well support most if not all of doxygen's
syntax as another plugin. 0.3 includes a formatter that generates an
inheritance diagram as a test of the GraphViz (the same tool used by
doxygen) which will probably be extended to include the inheritance/
collaboration diagrams directly in HTML pages by 0.4.

I am excited by how modular Synopsis is, compared to other monolithic
tools. It has the potential to adapt itself to any situation you may
require. The more features we implement the more we refactor common
functionality -- the current HTML layout is modelled after Javadoc which I
have used before, but it is entirely possible that by 0.4 we will support
other layouts such as that used by doxygen. We will ensure that doing so
will pave the way for other layouts such that it will be trivial for users
to write a small python script to format things as they like! Following
similar principles has already led to the possibility of writing your own
little python script to format or parse comments and reference it from the
command-line (without modifing synopsis itself!).

Feedback from potential users such as yourself is extremely valuable to
us. Although Synopsis originated as a tool to document Berlin, it has the
possibility for much wider use, driven by requests such as this. Both
Stefan and I are taking steps such that each extra feature *enhances* the
elegance of the design, rather than convoluting it as I have seen
elsewhere. I must admit however, that Stefan did a good job of laying out
a very elegant base upon which we have been working :)

Stay tuned :)

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