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MIF Doclet

 
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MIF Doclet - for Generating FrameMaker and PDF Documents

The MIF Doclet is an extension to the JavadocTM tool that generates API documentation in MIF (Maker Interchange Format) from declarations and doc comments in source code written in the JavaTM programming language. With Adobe FrameMaker and the proper batch processing program installed, the MIF Doclet will automatically generate FrameMaker and PDF files. The MIF Doclet can also convert ordinary (but simple) HTML files to MIF and PDF -- this is useful for adding chapters to the API documentation. Thus, it is designed for fully-automated generation of publication-quality books and documentation. Notably, the MIF Doclet uses the same set of Javadoc tags (such as @return, @param and @see) that the standard doclet uses.

Disclaimer - The MIF Doclet is experimental code developed for internal use at Sun and released to the developer community for use as-is. It is not a supported product. Use at your own risk. While we intend and have worked to make it useful, bugs might not be fixed and requested features might not be added. We reserve the right to release updates with an incompatible implementation or page layout.
 
System Requirements
 
 
System Requirements - Before downloading, refer to system requirements for required software, and, if interested, Changes in MIF Doclet for changes since the previous release. If running on Windows (or AIX), you'll also need to download dzbatcher from Miramo in order to automate the entire conversion process beyond MIF files to FrameMaker and PDF files.

Installation Instructions - Uncompress the downloaded bundle in any directory you want. This process creates a directory named mifdoclet1.2. This directory contains the MIF Doclet (a jar file), README file, a test directory, documentation and the doclet source code. The test directory contains some sample source code to run the MIF Doclet on and the resulting sample MIF, FrameMaker and PDF documents. It does not include the batch program fmbatch or dzbatcher required for batch processing.

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Documentation and Samples
 
 
       Documentation (included in download bundle):

       Sample books, specifications and appendixes generated by the MIF Doclet:

 
Testimonials
 
 
"... I think the little [MIF] Doclet thing is pretty cool. The previous versions of the "Overture" documentation were produced with this tool and over 450 pages of nicely formatted text were produced. I think it is great when tools fulfill their promise; it doesn't happen enough."
B. Scott Andersen, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

"We've been using the MIF doclet for some time internally to review API specs under development. Recently, we decided to go even further with it, using it to create a printable SDK API reference manual as part of the user documentation for our new product, DeployDirector. (DeployDirector is a solution for managing deployment and updating of Java client-side applications and applets.) While it was a bit tricky, we were able to use our own FrameMaker template and dzbatcher on Windows. The MIF doclet was the best way to keep the DeployDirector SDK docs up-to-date!"
- Dave Truman, Technical Publications manager, Sitraka Software. dave.truman@sitraka.com

 
Development of MIF Doclet
 
 
Design specifications for the XML book file:

Book File Specification (September 2000)
Book File XML Format
 
Discussion Group, Feedback and Notifications
 
 
We have a discussion group (listserv) where we solicit feedback and you can join in discussing features and bugs with the MIF Doclet development team and other users:
MIFDoclet-Interest Web Page
You can send email to this group at:
MIFDoclet-Interest@java.sun.com
If you would like to send email only to the MIF Doclet development team, use this address:
javadoctool at sun.com
We also have a discussion group for general Javadoc questions (not specifically the MIF Doclet) at:
Forums and click on "Javadoc Tool".
We at Java Software will not necessarily be monitoring this forum regularly.

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