The new face of CakePHP's API
If you’ve been to the http://api.cakephp.org today you may have noticed a few changes. First its no longer powered by doxygen. Doxygen has been giving us a few headaches in the last few months. So gwoo and myself have taken it upon ourselves to write our own Api generation tool. We called it ApiGenerator you can see it running at api.cakephp.org. And you can download your own copy from thechaw.
About the ApiGenerator
ApiGenerator is a CakePHP plugin that uses PHP’s reflection api to create documentation from live source code. It requires very little file parsing and provides a fast easy to use documentation system. I started working on a Reflection based documentation tool a few years back. But it wasn’t until recently that there was a real need to develop it. Just before we started having issues with doxygen, I resumed working on it at a nice medium pace. Gwoo joined me and kicked things into high gear a few weeks later and really helped to pull the project together and make something that I feel is pretty great. So I hope you enjoy the new api.cakephp.org and ApiGenerator in general. I will be writing a tutorial shortly on how you can create an API for your apps with ApiGenerator.
Nice job guys. It looks nice. And a bit faster then the previous api, I think?
Martin Westin on 1/27/09
I love the new look. Fix the search and it will make it just that more awesome. Keep it up :)
Mike Bernat on 1/27/09
Well done, guys.
It looks (and acts) so much better. I guess the only little gripe I have is what Mike had said about the search.
Otherwise, it’s a really great leap in the right direction.
teknoid on 1/27/09
It looks great.
Is the API search functionality still undergoing changes or is it WYSIWYG? (It doesn’t appear to be functioning at all, which is sort of a bummer.)
Brian D. on 1/27/09
Nice! But I think the “Source” tab is not working correctly. You can’t navigate into subfolders and viewing files is not working.
Adam on 1/27/09
I love it! Great work
José Lorenzo ROdrÃguez on 1/27/09
Great work, should make a real difference, looks great.
Brett Wilton on 1/28/09
I agree with Mike Bernat, the search functionality is a little bit lacking.
The style are great!
JoaquÃn Windmüller on 1/28/09
Well as many of you noticed, the search was a little lacking and a bit too generous with results. And there were a few broken links. I think we’ve got these issues fixed along with a few other things. Thanks for all your patience as we iron out the bugs. In the end I think it will be a change for the best.
mark story on 1/28/09
clicking on links such as libs/object.php on line 112 in the method definition takes me back to the index. also for optional parameters in the methods, it would be nice to know if it expects a null or array, for example in the $form->select method.
jason m on 1/28/09
also it was nice when I could see all the class names in the index without having to scroll. the font doesn’t need to be that big. sorry for just complaining, I think it is more visually pleasing and feels more up-to-date.
jason m on 1/28/09
Great Start.
One idea for future enhancement is to be able to comment on each function’s entry, like on php.net.
Perhaps even some cross pollination/linking between the cookbook and the api.
keymaster on 1/28/09
Nice job !
But the api is unreadable on Opera because of the lacking white background… Works fine on FF and IE though.
Kalt on 1/28/09
Very nice! Looks better then the previous one :-)
Ivan Bernat on 1/28/09
Nice!
Jaime on 1/28/09
Looks very good. What I am missing is the object graph.
Siegfried on 1/28/09
Great work. But I really hope there will be a .chm version that I can bring with me on the go.
Gian on 1/28/09
This page is breaking in Firefox 3
http://api.cakephp.org/class/form-helper
all the other pages seem fine though
austin_web_developer on 1/28/09
Nice design indeed.
Although I missed the old search. For example when I searched for key word “link” and the result should show me that there is such function under HtmlHelper class, instead I can see only the link to the HtmlHelper. I know it’s correct, but when I am searching for exact function it should show me the link to it.
Other than this I think the new Api is a great job!
Nik on 1/28/09
Soooo smooooth.
Though I never issue with the old api, I am loving the new interface. I think anyone that spends a decent amount of time there owes a huge thanks to you and gwoo for the effort. Bravo!
Edward Webb on 1/28/09