Announcing December 2006 Sandcastle CTP

The December 2006 CTP version for Sandcastle is now available for download at https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E82EA71D-DA89-42EE-A715-696E3A4873B2&displaylang=en. Our sincere thanks to the Sandcastle user community and to Eric Woodruff for providing us with valuable feedback.

What's new in this version:

  1. Sandcastle installer is now setting the DXROOT environment variable to the installation directory. All config files new has a DXROOT environment variable.
  2. MrefBuilder now Exclude (Ripping) Namespace, types and members. Exclude (Ripping) Namespace, types and members are configured through MrefBuilder.config. This issue was discussed at https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=935512&SiteID=1.
  3. The following HTML tags will pass through unchanged just like all the other HTML tags:

<br/>, <hr/>, <h1></h1>, <h2></h2>, <h3></h3>, <h4></h4>, <h5></h5>, <h6></h6>, <pre></pre>, <div></div>, <span></span>, <blockquote></blockquote>, <abbr></abbr>, <acronym></acronym>.

  1. Support for separate member pages (similar to VS2005). In order to have separate member pages, you have to run a new transform ApplyVsDocModel.xsl instead of AddOverloads.xsl:

XslTransform /xsl:..\..\ProductionTransforms\ApplyVSDocModel.xsl reflection.org /xsl:..\..\ProductionTransforms\AddGuidFilenames.xsl /out:reflection.xml

Separate pages will be created for members, methods, properties, events, fields and constructors.

  1. VS 2005 transforms support for FireFox.

Changes in this version:

1. Updated Sandcastle.config files for Prototype and VS2005 to include DXROOT variable.

2. Added new transform ApplyVsDocModel.xsl to support induvidual member pages for VS2005 transforms.

Issues fixed in this version:

1. MrefBuilder internal+ switch not working. This was a regression in November CTP.

2. The Presentation\Prototype\Scripts\StyleUtilities.js file causes pages to throw JavaScript errors when it tries to access a style sheet with an ms-help URL when the page is loaded via an https:// URL.

3. There is an IE-specific reference to the event object that does not work in FireFox in the Presentation\VS2005\Scripts\script_manifold.js file.

4. When using FriendlyFilenames explicit interface methods are not compiled in CHM file - https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=917434&SiteID=1

5. The caption of my <seealso> tag does not appear https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=918098&SiteID=1

6. When using the <c> tag, the text within it appears in a slightly different fonthttps://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=918098&SiteID=1

7. When building for the VS2005 presentation style, it not longer displays the text indicating where an inherited member has been inherited from. https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=918098&SiteID=1

8. The code in the <example> tag does not appear in a light blue color like it does when compiled for the prototype presentation style https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=918098&SiteID=1

9. Bug: Root-chickenfeet item (namespaces) is no hyperlink anymore https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=917456&SiteID=1

10. Sandcastle Feature request https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=944516&SiteID=1

11. Bug in Prototype style's utilities_reference.xsl file. If you disable the C# language filter, it doesn't display the syntax for the first tab until you click on it.

12. MSDN links does not point to a language other than the English site. Fixed the ResolveReferenceLinksComponent hard codes the language ("en-US") for the URLs.

13. Bug in the processing of the <overloads> summary information.

14. Unavle to build Wintellect (https://www.wintellect.com) dlls (https://www.wintellect.com/PowerCollectionsAttachments/PowerCollections.zip)

15. Given a generic base class with an overloaded method, MRefBuilder incorrectly lists the first member found for all overloads in the type's <elements> list. It does correctly generate an <api> entry for each method. However, because they aren't in the <elements> list, the other methods do not get documented. If the first method is internal or private, it shows up in the element list when it shouldn't and also hides the other public overloads. The problem does not occur if the "<T>" generic type is replaced with a non-generic type such as string.

16. When specifying a <permission /> in doc, the set of required permissions renders in the end documentation in a table, but it doesn't have the same styling as other tables (like the exceptions table), making it inconsistent and sort of hard to read. Styles are missing for permissions section under prototype.

Issues not fixed in this version:

1. CHM is missing state - https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=923606&SiteID=1

2. Bug: Interihance Hierarchy VS2005 incorrect when using inner classes due to issue in BuildComponents. https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=917691&SiteID=1

3. Both the Prototype and VS2005 styles aren't showing the "obsolete" messages for items with an ObsoleteAttribute.

4. In the member lists, do not list all overloads; just list the member name with a jump to the topic containing the overload list (as done in MS-VS2005 documentation).

5. In vs2005 transform, there are only classes, interfaces in TOC, no their members any more.

I would love to hear your feedback about this CTP.

Anand..