Paint.NET Plugin API Documentation

This is the github repository for Paint.NET's Plugin API documentation: https://paintdotnet.github.io/apidocs/

This file is not part of the plugin API documentation. It is documentation for working on the documentation itself.

The API reference pages for namespaces, classes, structs, enums, etc. are automatically generated by docfx.

NOTE: The docs directory is generated by the build.cmd batch file. Do not make edits in there, they will not persist.

Local Editing

Editing articles shouldn't require you to build the docs, but you will need to build the docs when it comes time to submit a pull request.

You can edit Markdown files (*.md) in Visual Studio Code, which has live preview. Here's my workflow:

1. Open Visual Studio Code
2. File -> Open Folder, point it to the ApiDocs folder
3. Open up a .md file (like README.md or index.md or whatever) by double-clicking on it
4. To open the preview tab, press Ctrl+Shift+V (or right click on the tab and then on Open Preview)

Local Building

You will need to temporarily edit docfx.json to point it at where you have the Paint.NET DLLs. Right now it's configured for where I (Rick) build locally.

How to build the docs and get into a nice edit/build loop:

1. Run restore.cmd. It will install docfx. You only need to do this once.
2. Make sure you have already built Paint.NET in Visual Studio.
3. Run build_and_serve.cmd. It will build the docs (might take a few minutes!) and will then host the website locally so you can view it.
4. Make your edits
5. Go back to the console window where you ran build_and_serve.cmd and press Ctrl+C to kill it, then press Y for the "terminate batch file?" question.
6. If you made changes in the Paint.NET code, like adding or editing doc comments, make sure you do another Build -> Build Solution over in Visual Studio. docfx looks at the DLLs that are already built, it does not compile the code.
7. Go back to step 3.

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