Generate a Sandcastle help file for a website without the “Xml Documentation File” option

Question

I am trying to generate a Sandcastle help file for a website. In the properties window for project, there aren't any options for creating the XML Documentation File required for Sandcastle.

The Build tab in the property pages only contains options for: Start Action, Build Solution Action, and Accessibility validation. I don't have any options for Output, or XML documentation file, like my other projects have.

The website I'm working with does not have an actual .proj file, which could be the problem. If this is the problem, what is the best way of creating one for a project that is under source control and being worked on by many people with minimal disruption?

This is using Visual Studio 2005 professional.

Answer 1

The problem with websites in VS2k5 is that, when they get compiled, the resulting dlls are a mess. No namespaces, weird names, etc.

If you truly want to generate a Sandcastle Help File, look at converting your website into a web application. You can definitely generate source code docs for that.

Answer 2

I haven't tried it yet, but you might want to try the following Documenting Web Sites / Projects from Eric Woodruff's site. It gives the specifics on how it can be done.

Update: I did try it and it works for regular websites. The only issue I can see is that the websites don't have namespaces. So when I run it I get a topic by FolderName_WebPage Class format without any logical grouping. So it is alhpabetical by folder and page name. Once you got the content created, you can edit the help file using a helpcompiler / builder and group the topics as needed.