Hey look at that, I'm not dead!

I know it's been a while.  I know you thought I packed up and moved to Zimbabwe or something, but I'm still here.  After a bit of a hiatus and a few false starts, Natural Docs is back in active development.

I'm changing the development process around a bit.  Rather than queuing up features for big, monolithic releases and having them just appear without warning, I'm opening it up considerably.  New features will now be available in development releases as soon as they're in a usable state, even if every aspect of them isn't fully complete.  New features will also be released individually, so right after a stable release you'll see another development release as soon as the first new feature is added and usable.

Everybody wins.  The more adventurous of you get to use new features sooner and have a much faster release cycle.  The more cautious of you will have better tested stable releases.  And all of you will know exactly what's going on and can comment on the new features, even if you don't actually use the development releases.

And that's what I get out of it: more feedback while I'm working on the features, which is when it's easiest to incorporate it, and more testing so I can more confidently label the full releases as stable.

If you're interested in using the development releases or even just following them, you should sign up for the Development Releases mailing list to keep up.  I will NOT announce them on the regular New Releases list, which will be reserved for stable releases going forward.

There's a new development page that explains the new features, what their current state is, and lists any questions you can help me out with.

The first one is already out, so here's what's in it.  Go to the development page for the full details.

Natural Docs will read Javadoc comments and incorporate them into the documentation.  Full language support only.

Since I had to add this capability for Javadoc, you can skip the "Function: Name" line for Natural Docs too.  Just use the Javadoc style for the comment symbols but use Natural Docs formatting for the actual content.  Full language support only.

Embed images in your documentation.

Now this is cool.  Head over to this page and play with that nice little inconspicuous link at the bottom of the menu.  Maybe type a random letter or two.  It's actually more of a quick index lookup than a full search, but still.  It also shows how I'm going to be pushing further into dynamic HTML going forward.

Again, sign up for the Development Releases list to keep up with this.  I won't be announcing them on the regular New Releases list.

Have fun!