# Rannotate v2 - Annotated Rails API documentation with search **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [November 17, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rannotate-v2-annotated-rails-api-documentation-with-search/48153 "2005-11-17T05:18:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![conor.huntSrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a5b964/32.png) [@conor.huntSrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conor.huntSrails)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rannotate-v2-annotated-rails-api-documentation-with-search/48153/1 "2005-11-17T05:18:46Z")
I’ve been working hard to improve the Rails API documentation and I’d like to announce the release of version 2 of Rannotate.My goal is to emulate (and improve upon) the PHP style online documentation at [www.php.net](http://www.php.net). I think websites speak louder than words so check out rannotate in action here: [http://rails.outertrack.com/](http://rails.outertrack.com/) Rannotate consists of a custom RDoc generator and a Rails application. The RDoc generator creates a database out of your files and the rails application generates the documentation you see on the fly, allowing for searching, user annotations and many more great things to come. Read more about it here: [http://rannotate.rubyforge.org](http://rannotate.rubyforge.org) I know there are plenty of bugs. I haven’t been able to try it out on many platforms. I think most things should be working but please submit bugs and suggestions using the rubyforge trackers. [http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?group\_id=1051](http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?group_id=1051) Coming in following versions: History - show diffs between different versions of the documentation to see what changed between versions of a class, module, file, method… RSS Feeds - rss feeds for notes for all parts of the documentation Bug Fixes - lots of them (with your help) Thanks go to Matias Pelenur for his contributions to this release, many bug fixes and chunks of code for the search. – Conor ---
**Author:** ![conor.huntSrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a5b964/32.png) [@conor.huntSrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conor.huntSrails)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2005, 6:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rannotate-v2-annotated-rails-api-documentation-with-search/48153/2 "2005-11-17T06:34:24Z")
Great work Conar, truly one area that Rails and Ruby needs improvement on for us PHP converts. One point to mention is I would like to see a convergence of both Rails and Ruby (Core and Standard Library) documentation in one site. As someone still getting familiar with the library of Rails and the foundation of Ruby, I find it that sometimes when I search for a method, such as inspect, I am only to find afterwards that it’s apart of Ruby and not Rails itself. So, with that in mind, having a unified documentation system for both, with indication on whether its Rails or Ruby within the docs would be excellent. To be honest though, it really doesn’t matter if it says its Rails or Ruby, coming from a Rails perspective as both are available in their entirety for Rails developers. One key point for a usability standpoint would be that of removing the frames (I am sure you are already on this), and providing the same method/function per page that PHP has. Whereby, when you click on a method it gives you a complete breakdown of that method and usage. This is espcially important when encouraging user submitted comments for usage examples as the PHP docs are completely saturated with. Another point of recommendation is that of the URL search, whereby I can type [PHP: date - Manual](http://www.php.net/date) and it will bring me up to the date functionality page with comments. This has been deployed by MySQL successfully as well, based on the user feedback from the community of PHP and I find it personally extremely useful. Warmest regards, Nathan. * * * Nathaniel S. H. Brown Toll Free 1.877.4.INIMIT Inimit Innovations Phone 604.724.6624 [www.inimit.com](http://www.inimit.com) Fax 604.444.9942 ---
**Author:** ![conor.huntSrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a5b964/32.png) [@conor.huntSrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conor.huntSrails)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 1:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rannotate-v2-annotated-rails-api-documentation-with-search/48153/3 "2006-04-13T13:45:26Z")
It would also be nice if you could add notes per method as opposed to per module. regards, Paulie ---
**Author:** ![conor.huntSrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a5b964/32.png) [@conor.huntSrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/conor.huntSrails)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2006, 1:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rannotate-v2-annotated-rails-api-documentation-with-search/48153/4 "2006-08-27T13:57:38Z")
conor.hunt+rails wrote: > I’ve been working hard to improve the Rails API documentation and I’d > like to announce the release of version 2 of Rannotate.My goal is to > emulate (and improve upon) the PHP style online documentation at > [www.php.net](http://www.php.net). I think websites speak louder than words so check out > rannotate in action here: > > [http://rails.outertrack.com/](http://rails.outertrack.com/) Nice initiative but it seems the website is not accessible. Is it temporary or has it been moved ?