Installing Doxygen Support in Eclipse

It is assumed that you have installed Eclipse before proceeding. If you have not installed Eclipse, you should refer to Development Environment Setup - Windows Section B, Option Two.

Step 1

Click on [Help]->[Software Updates]->[Find and Install...]

This will open the Install/Update window that allows you to search for features to install. Be sure to select the "Search for new features to install" radio button.

Click [Next] to continue...

Step 2

The "Install" window lists the sites that are searched for updates and new features. Since we are wanting to install the eclox plugin, we need to add a [New Remote Site...]. Click on this button and you are presented with a New Update Site dialog box.

Enter "Eclox - Doxygen Plugin" into the Name field and "http://download.gna.org/eclox/update/" as the URL. Press the [OK] button when you are ready to continue and your Install window shoudl now have a entry for "Eclox - Doxygen Plugin". If there is not a check box selecting it, click in the empty box to the left. Click [Finish] to continue...

Step 3

You should now see an image that looks something like this:

You may need to click on the "+" to expand the "Eclox - Doxygen Plugin" tree. Be sure the proper boxes are ticked and click on [Next >] to continue...

Step 4

You will be presented with the feature license for both the doxygen binaries and the eclox plugin.
_{Obligitory Comment: Read the license information to the right.}

Click on the radio button next to "I accept the terms of the license agreements" and click [Next >] to continue...

Step 5

The actual installation window appears and you are presented with the following information:

There should be two entries (doxygen binaries and eclox). The feature version may have advanced since this document was published. Your installation directory may be different than mine, but it should be consistent with your expectations. Click [Finish] when you are ready to continue...

Immediately the Update Manager goes into action and downloads the plugins.

Step 6

Next you may be presented with two feature verification screens. If you are not presented with these screens, please don't become clinically depressed. At the time this document was published the two plugins were not digitally signed. Unless you wish to wallow in drama, please don't vapor lock if you are a desperately linear (left brained) step follower... proceed to Step 7 if needed.

Click [Install]... (yes, one "could" press [Install All] as an option)

Click [Install]...

Step 7

At this point, the plugin is technically installed and now Eclipse would enjoy being restarted.

It is up to you, but clicking [Yes] is strongly suggested...

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Congratulations! You now have Doxygen support activated for your Eclipse development environment. Now you might try to rush ahead at this point... feel free to experiment. However, if you are interested in saving yourself some grief, continue with the following steps.

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Step 8

On the Eclipse menu bar--Click on [Window]->[Preferences]

Select Doxygen in the left column. The right panel should change to something similiar to the above image. You may not have a version ticked. Check one of the versions. When this document was published, version 1.5.1 was the optimal version (1.5.2 had been released but not yet ported to this plugin).

Step 9

At this point you might rush off and try to build documentation without a doxyfile and get this error window:

Not to worry, we'll fix that now... Select you project home directory and right click on it. Select [New]->[Other...] and the New Select a wizard Window will pop up.

You may need to click on the "+" next to Other to reveal "Doxyfile". Select Doxyfile and click [Next>] to continue. Something similiar to the following image should pop up:

Your project name may be different. Mine happened to be MMOKit at the time of this document's creation. Basically, we are creating a stock configuration file for Doxygen and placing it in our project's home directory. The Doxyfile nme should already be populated for you. If it is not, name it and be sure that it has the file extension of ".doxyfile"

Click [Finish] when you are ready to continue...

Step 10

Having created your doxyfile, I would urge you to double click on it and make one minor adjustment.

Next to the "Output Directory" field, click on [Browse...]

This will open a typical directory browse window. The reason I have you do it this way is so that you can create a "docs" directory if you don't already have one. In the interest of my sanity, I'll not document the process of creating a directory or selecting it... But I do urge you to do this to prevent the documention from spewing into your project's home directory.

Once you have a "docs" output directory... you may close the file. You will be prompted to save it...

NOW... you are free! Shooo... go forth and document.

What? You don't know the documentation syntax for Doxygen?

No worries... it's very simple. So simple that even a project manager or developer can use it!

How to document code with Doxygen

Special document blocks for Python

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Doxygen is a documentation system for C++, C, Java, Objective-C, Python, IDL (Corba and Microsoft flavors) and to some extent PHP, C#, and D.

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If you found this document helpful, pay it forward and write some documentation! :-)