how to show an alt text for property/method in a class.

[Guoqi Zheng]

Dear sir,

I often developed class/component for other popele.

People put a reference to my class and create a new instance for it, when
they are assigning properties to that class, I would like VS.NET to show a
text nearby their mouse to tell them what that property is for and what
value should be assigned to it. How can I do this? native class library in
..NET all have this possibility.

--
Kind regards

Guoqi Zheng
guoqi AT meetholland dot com
Http://www.meetholland.com

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

* "Guoqi Zheng" <[e-mail]> scripsit:

I often developed class/component for other popele.

People put a reference to my class and create a new instance for it, when
they are assigning properties to that class, I would like VS.NET to show a
text nearby their mouse to tell them what that property is for and what
value should be assigned to it. How can I do this? native class library in
.NET all have this possibility.

My FAQ:

Adding tooltips in intellisense for VB.NET assemblies and creating HTML Help
documentation:

VS.NET takes the text shown in intellisense tips from an XML file that is
provided in addition to the assembly (for example, a DLL). The XML file
must have the same name as the corresponding DLL with ".xml" appended and
has to be placed in the same folder as the assembly (assembly "Foo.dll",
XML file "Foo.dll.xml").

The format of the XML file taken by VS.NET is specified here:

<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/csref/html/vclrfprocessingxmlfile.asp>

For C#, VS.NET creates this XML file automatically (compiler option "/doc").
For VB.NET, that's currently not supported, but this will be possible in VB
2005.

You can create the XML file by hand, but notice that this will take a lot of
time and it will be hard to keep the file up to date when parts of the
assembly change. It's much easier to use one of the tools listed below to
create the XML file. Tools like NDOC will take the XML file and create an
HTML Help file from the XML formatted data.

One easy way to create the XML file is to provide information for tooltips
as XML comments inside the VB.NET source files and then use tools like
VB.DOC to create the XML file that contains the data. Then you can copy
this file into the assembly's directory to provide information to VS.NET
that enables it to display tooltips, or you can create a help file. The
help file can be deployed with the assembly and can be used by other
developers who use the assembly as reference.

For VB.NET 2002/2003:

VB Commenter
<URL:http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/ide/>
-> "VB Commenter"

XML Documentation
<URL:http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/vb/>
-> "XML Documentation"

VBXC - VB.NET XML Commentor
<URL:http://vbxmldoc.tor-erik.net/>

NDOC (formerly DOC.NET)
<URL:http://ndoc.sourceforge.net/>

VB.DOC
<URL:http://vb-doc.sourceforge.net/>

<URL:http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/Workspaces/Workspace.aspx?id=112b5449-f702-46e2-87fa-86bdf39a17dd>

XML comments will be introduced to VB in version 2005 ("Whidbey").

C# XML comments:

C# Programmer's Reference -- Recommended Tags for Documentation Comments
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/csref/html/vclrfTagsForDocumentationComments.asp>

--
Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]
<URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>
<URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/dotnet/faqs/>