ASPHelp

Web site documentation tool

Version 2.21

Supporting Windows Server 2003 as a development platform.

ASPHelp is a documentation tool allowing developers of active server pages, QA professionals, and information architects the ability to document the paths of execution, including parameters passed, for the ASP and HTML web pages of their web sites. ASPHelp produces industry standard HTML Help documentation familiar to virtually all developers working with Microsoft toolsets. In documenting the pages as you design them, and by defining an interface contract for your pages, you can ensure the stability and reliability of your web application.

Object oriented design techniques have existed for some time, and they all have a guiding principle of defining the interfaces to objects, and adhering to those interfaces, often called contracts. In the world of the web, the interfaces we often need to be concerned with revolve around how information gets transferred from one page of a site to another. What are the expected input parameters to a page, and what is their access method? Are values passed in GETs or POSTs, or are they passed in a cookie or a session variable? Does the page redirect to another, or perhaps more than one page, depending upon the path of ASP execution.

ASPHelp bridges this gap. As explained on the benefits page and the features page, you can use ASPHelp to document the input parameters, session variables, application variables, redirection points, forms and anchors on your pages, without actually writing the ASP. The resultant documentation can be turned over to the presentation tier developers to develop the actual script required for the page.

By paralleling the development efforts, and ensuring interface contracts exist, the time to market for the application, and the quantity of hard to find bugs are both reduced. Increased code quality, consistency of code, and efficiency of development time all translate into lower development costs, and allow for earlier time to market, which makes you, and your clients money.

Ultimately, you need to determine if ASPHelp offers the level of service you desire, but given its low cost of ownership, even saving a few hours of development time makes the return on investment high.

Version 2.21 Bug Fixes

Under certain circumstances, colorized source code with includes would lack the leading single or double quote for the file name
When listing the include files, certain non printable characters could be included in the output leading to HTML Help workshop compilation errors
If an XML project file was specified, but parsing errors occurred loading the project file, the default table of contents and options were not loaded. Now fixed
If a parsing error occurred loading an XML project file, this parsing error is now surfaced to the user.
If an error occurs writing out an include file, that error no longer causes ASPHelp to abort processing.
HTML Help Compiler location is now validated when running ASPHelpConsole.exe
Added additional location check for HTML Help Compiler.
When color coding JavaScript comments, if two multi-line comment blocks were separated only by whitespace, color coding would become corrupt

Version 2.20 Feature Enhancements

In addition to several bug fixes, version 2.20 of ASPHelp has feature enhancements.

Unknown script language files are colorized as HTML
CSS contained in STYLE tags is now colorized.
ActiveX (COM) object usage is now included in the table of contents.
During the expansion of procedures (functions and subroutines), the derived page output lost synchronization resulting in corrupt output. This corruption was most obvious in large pages.
HTML tags are now processed using XHTML rules resulting in improved accuracy
XML and XSL included in the project via HTML inclusion is colorized.
Summary pages linked from the table of contents now include hyperlinks for items contained below the chapter of the table of contents entry.
Command line output now includes the compilation steps from hhc.exe.
Project XML has been expanded to table of contents options for display text, folder name, and data area name. Please see the manual for more information.
ActiveXObject is now recognized as an object creation mechanism.
CDATA content is now colorized.

Version 2.10 Feature Enhancements

Version 2.10 contains both new functionality and resolves several bugs present in version 2.01. The following list summarizes the new functionality.

Includes and script libraries are now defined in a dedicated table of contents section. If you wish to suppress this new functionality, it can be done using XML project files. Please refer to the manual section on the XML table of contents.
Application and session variables are now defined in a dedicated table of contents section.
Cookie usage is now defined in a dedicated table of contents section.
ASPHelp can now be executed from command line batch files. Please see the manual for more details. Note that this functionality is restricted to
registered versions of ASPHelp.
Dynamic OBJECT tags are now supported

Version 2.10 Bug Fixes

The following bug fixes were implemented in version 2.10. As always, if you encounter functionality believed to be a bug, don't hesitate to communicate your findings with us.

Overall processing speed has been improved significantly for server side script libraries
If an include was missing enclosing quotes, the include would not be included in the project.
If an include used single quote characters for enclosing quotes, the output source would show double quotes.
If a block help tag encapsulated a zero length string, the contents of the help tag would be processed as if it were the entire file. Now fixed.
The description for "Client navigation" was spelled "Client navigation"
If no ASPHelp.ini, global.asa, or ASPHelp.xml input was defined, then the output table of contents would be incomplete.
The source code title in the index would always include the word "Title".
If a virtual include included a file include, the file include would have an incorrect path associated with it. Virtual includes including file includes now have file includes relative to the virtual include location.
Fixed a variety of bugs related to form location processing.
Zero length query string values are now represented as "Value is an empty string."
Fixed HTML attribute colorization bugs relating to mid-tag ASP context switches.
XML project file is now documented in the manual

Version 2.01 Bug fixes

Version 2.01 is a bug fix release. The bugs fixed occur in three distinct areas.

The version 2.0 full installer contained some erroneous files, and was missing other files
Incorrect UI navigation would occur if ASPHelp was launched by double-clicking on a project file
Under certain circumstances, users would be prompted to save project files containing no changes.

Version 2.0 Feature Enhancements

Version 2.0 is a major update to the ASPHelp documentation tool. While many of the functional areas are familiar, the capabilities of the product are greatly expanded. Some of the new functional elements include:

Integration with DBDocumentor
Colorized source code
XML project files, with published XSD schema
Modern MSDN layout option
Dynamically defined JavaScript functions are supported
Support for Windows Server 2003 as a development platform
Addition of new block commenting syntax
Support for customized tables of contents

Version 1.7 Enhancements

Version 1.7 includes minor bug fixes and a modified user interface to better deal with long path names during the project selection process. The most significant bug fix relates to support for the installation method used in the HTML Help workshop included with Visual Studio .NET.

Version 1.6 Enhancements

Version 1.6 sees several significant additions to the ASPHelp feature set, including linkage between SQLHelp and ASPHelp, and the ability to annotate file methods.

The following changes were made between version 1.5 and version 1.6:

Annotation of object usage. Objects created within the scope of the current file can now be fully annotated. Both client and server side objects are supported using a modified JavaDoc syntax.
Annotation of methods defined in files. Any sub routine or function defined in the scope of the current file can now be fully annotated. ASPHelp supports both client and server side methods written in either VBScript or JavaScript. The annotation is performed using a modified JavaDoc syntax.
Support for client side navigational elements. Now the server side page data flow capabilities of previous versions of ASPHelp are available for those using client side navigation, be it pure navigation, new windows, or Internet Explorer Modal and Modeless dialog boxes.
Support for integrated linkage between SQLHelp and ASPHelp. ASPHelp now allows you to define stored procedures contained in SQLHelp files and link between them. Full SQLHelp projects can be merged at runtime to provide a richer set of web documentation than was previously available.

Version 1.5 Enhancements

Version 1.5 sees the introduction of project files and a greatly enhanced capability to define interfaces in the absence of actual ASP or HTML, making ASPHelp perfect for interface design specification.

The following changes were made between version 1.4 and version 1.5:

Project files are now supported with ASPHelp. These project files contain all the information relating to a project and can be launched by double clicking on the project file, or loading the previous project file from the welcome page. All project files have the ASPHelp extension and are automatically written to disk.

The maximum number of project files in the recent projects list is 10

If a project file is loaded, and that project file actually contained files to process, the Finish button is enabled from step 2.

If your project file is not listed in the recent projects list, you can browse for it using the browse button on the welcome page. Project files are stored in the same folder as the source files and have the extension of ASPHelp.

If you select to define a new project, it will have the options of the most recent project save for the folder and files settings.

Support for parsing of procedures and subroutines. ASPHelp will attempt to determine which procedures and subroutines are used in the generation of a given web page and include them in the ASP being parsed for output.
Removal of temporary files. Long time users of ASPHelp have noticed that ASPHelp creates a large number of temporary files. These can now be automatically cleaned after parsing is completed.
Restart option at completion of compilation. When ASPHelp has completed processing of the project, you have the option of returning to the welcome screen and rerunning the previous project.
Detection of open output file. If the output file is open when ASPHelp begins processing, ASPHelp will display a warning box that offers the opportunity to close the output file before processing begins. If the output file is open when the Microsoft HTML Help compiler attempts to produce the output file, a new version of the output file will not be generated.
Support for server side script libraries.
A significant extension of ASPHelp that sees the inclusion of full support for interface definition.

Bug Fixes:

Minor issues relating to deeply nested With block processing

Lack of client side script With block processing with VBScript client side script

ASP tags used to build client side script were omitted

Response.write processing issue with mixed string concatenation characters

Potential infinite loop during Response.Write processing

Reduced sensitivity to poorly formatted HTML blocks (i.e. blocks that had not been validated by HTML validators)