DoxyRegen VSCode Extension

This extension automatically runs Doxygen when configured files change and displays the output in VSCode.

Note: 98% of this code including this readme was written by Claude Sonnet 3.5 using Cline 🤖. https://github.com/cline/cline

Features

• Automatically runs Doxygen when monitored files change
• Configurable Doxygen executable path and output directory
• Configurable Doxyfile path
• Configurable file watch patterns
• Shows Doxygen output in a dedicated webview
• Integrated HTML documentation preview panel
• Context menu integration for opening HTML files in preview
• Manual refresh command for on-demand generation

Requirements

• Visual Studio Code 1.85.0 or higher
• Doxygen installed (can be local to the project or system-wide)

Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following settings:

• DoxyRegen.doxygenPath: Path to the Doxygen executable
• DoxyRegen.doxyfilePath: Path to the Doxyfile configuration file
• DoxyRegen.watchPatterns: Array of glob patterns for files to watch for changes (defaults to ["**/*.cpp", "**/*.h"])
• DoxyRegen.outputDirectory: Optional output directory for Doxygen documentation (if not set, uses the directory specified in Doxyfile)

Usage

1. Install the extension
2. Configure the settings:
   • Set the path to your Doxygen executable (if not using the local copy)
   • Set the path to your Doxyfile
   • Configure which files to watch (defaults to *.cpp and *.h)
   • Optionally set a custom output directory
3. The extension will automatically run Doxygen when monitored files change
4. Use the available commands:
   • "Refresh Doxygen Documentation" to manually trigger documentation generation
   • "Open in Doxygen Preview" to view HTML documentation files in the integrated preview panel
   • Right-click HTML files to open them in the preview panel

How It Works

• When a monitored file changes, the extension automatically runs Doxygen using your configuration
• The output is processed in two ways:
  • Error messages and warnings are shown in the output channel
  • Generated HTML documentation is displayed in an integrated preview panel

Known Issues

• The extension currently assumes the Doxyfile is configured to generate HTML output
• The output viewer is basic and may need to be enhanced based on user feedback

Release Notes

0.1.0

Initial release of DoxyRegen with core functionality:

• Automated file watching system for documentation updates
• Configurable Doxygen and Doxyfile paths with custom output directory support
• Customizable file watch patterns
• Integrated HTML documentation preview panel with context menu integration
• Output channel for logs and error messages
• Local Doxygen executable support for development
• Manual refresh command for on-demand documentation generation

TODO: Remaining improvements needed:

1. Add path validation for doxygen executable and doxyfile
   • Check if files exist before attempting to run
   • Show clear error messages for missing files
   • Current setup tries to update setting displays while using doxygen, which is odd.
2. Improve error handling for common doxygen issues
   • Handle missing dependencies
   • Better reporting of syntax errors in doxyfile
3. Add workspace path resolution
   • Handle relative paths better
   • Support multi-root workspaces
4. Improve webview panel
   • Add reload button
   • Better CSS styling for error messages
   • Show doxygen warnings inline
5. Add status bar integration
   • Show documentation generation progress
   • Quick access to output panel
6. Incremental Updates without losing references
   • Doxygen itself doesn't have an incremental system, closest is Tagging
   • Experiment with using tagging to keep doxygen partially updated with cross-page references