Language reference as PDF

Hello,
documentation has been updated, but unfortunately I cannot find the language reference as PDF document. Are there plans to provide a downloadable version of the language reference ?

Tobias.

The PDF documentation is included with your Xojo installation and accessible from the Help menu.

Help->Quick Start
Help->Tutorials
Help->User Guide
Help->Upgrade Guide

In addition, they are available at the documentation wiki along with the iBooks versions:

http://documentation.xojo.com

Sorry, I misread your question (it’s too early in the morning here) :slight_smile:

The Language Reference will not be available as PDF. It is a wiki and does not lend itself well to a PDF layout. However, you can access it locally by changing the Xojo General Preference for “When seeking help” to “Use built-in documentation”.

Thank you for your reply.

I know how to access the language reference, but I would like to have it on my Kindle reader, which accepts PDF documents. It’s a bit hard to understand that the most important part of a programming language cannot be made available in different formats. The Wiki format was a bad decision.

Every engineer & a handful of customers who’ve asked for a login can update the wiki
Not so with a PDF
The wiki stays far more up to date than any of the old PDF’s with older versions

As the wiki is a database wouldn’t it be possible to have an exporter which automatically can create a PDF from it? I personally would prefer a PDF as I can put it on my tablet device and don’t have to be online all the time.

Norman,
You said you’d be willing to provide a XML dump of the wiki, right? May I ask you to send me a copy please?
Thanks!

[quote=11583:@Paul Lefebvre]Sorry, I misread your question (it’s too early in the morning here) :slight_smile:

The Language Reference will not be available as PDF. It is a wiki and does not lend itself well to a PDF layout. However, you can access it locally by changing the Xojo General Preference for “When seeking help” to “Use built-in documentation”.[/quote]

Paul, is the local PDF always up-to-date, representing the current relase state of the language?

The local PDF is as up to date as it can be when the release is created
THere is no mechanism to update it with edits made after the release date (which happens quite frequently)[quote=12046:@Alex von Siebenthal]Norman,
You said you’d be willing to provide a XML dump of the wiki, right? May I ask you to send me a copy please?
Thanks![/quote]
I’ll see what we can do to get one posted

The local LR (which is not a PDF) is updated with a snapshot of what is online towards the end of beta testing. It is only updated when a new version of Xojo is shipped.

The online LR is updated continuously.

[quote=12046:@Alex von Siebenthal]Norman,
You said you’d be willing to provide a XML dump of the wiki, right? May I ask you to send me a copy please?
Thanks![/quote]

I believe this the first request for the dump. YEAH!!

We’ll get a dump of the XML set up.
Once we have the URL for it you will be able to grab that & import it into your own local copy of MediaWiki.
We have a few custom extensions to MediaWiki that anyone wanting to do this.
We’ll need to put up a zip file with those so whatever local wiki’s you want will look right.

The other question I do have is - how many folks DO want a PDF of the Language Reference derived from the Wiki.
No promises it’ll show up for the next version or ever but we want to gauge interest.

Me. But it’s only useful as long as things are linked within the PDF. I’d already be happier if the built in docs wouldn’t crash Xojo that often and offer auto-complete/live search (for class methods, too, please!) when typing.

Unless the PDF is updated on a regular basis to keep all the edits in the wiki, then no. It would drive me bat **** crazy as it would say one thing, and the IDE would be saying something else.

Even if it was updated at the same time each release comes out, that is waaay to slow.

Just my 2 cents worth.

The wiki will always be able to be slightly newer than any PDF unless we regenerate the PDF every time the Wiki changes.
RIght now theres no process to generate any PDF from the wiki so keeping it up to date will be yet another task over & above initially creating a PDF from the wiki.

I desire a PDF ofthe LR to use in a iPad, unless you have an App for Android/IPad able to import and run the MediaWiki dump there off-line.

I think it’s as given fact that a PDF wouldn’t be as updated as the online docs. It’s not a drawback of the PDF but of having any sort of offline documentation. But the idea of offline documentation is precisely that it’s offline so that trumps most everything else.

I, too, think a downloadable version would be a good thing. The caveat could be in a disclaimer.

I would certainly welcome an offline/portable version of the LR, and PDF seems to be the most compatible format.

If an XML is made available an offline webapp could be made of it, so it autoupdates when online and stays updated when offline. I could take a shot at it.