Visual Studio external documentation highlighter?

News & General Discussion
1

Right now I add <summary> to nearly every variable just to make sure its documented enough, but it’s actually cluttering everything in sight.

But instead of having a nice:

private int some;
private string something;
private bool onemore;
private Vector3 rushmore;

I have this:

/// <summary> OKOASDKOKASD </summary>
private int some;

/// <summary> OKOASDKOKASD </summary>
private string something;

/// <summary> OKOASDKOKASD </summary>
private bool onemore;

/// <summary> OKOASDKOKASD </summary>
private Vector3 rushmore;

And yes, for very many of those variables, those explanations are crucial.
I am not looking for a documentation renderer that would turn all my code and parse it into HTML/CSS file.
But if someone opens my project I would like to add comments and clarifications for methods, variables and classes (the way <summary> does). I need to be able to fill my files with solid readable documentation (of ever-changing application) without cluttering my view. 20 variables in a row look way nicer, than 50 rows (20 lines of code, 20 lines of <summary> and a space between each not to lose my mind and keep it readable).

Note: I have barely any experience with functionality of Visual Studio itself, so please spare hate if there’s a simple switch.

P.S.: Heck, maybe you know a fantastic documentation plugin that you would say totally smashes the one of Visual Studio, that’d be great to hear too.

2

You can make your own extension to customize the code view or find a ready one that works th way you like the most

3

Could you elaborate on that, please? Thank you.

4

Making extension is like making server apps, sounds easy, until you get sweaty.

I tried Googling for documentations but all of them were relating to ready HTML/CSS documentations, and I want this one to be as I’m developing as I command it to render in Editor (or in an external window). Obviously Google didn’t bring me any real results, and even though I installed those ready docs renderers, I still didn’t know how to run them as I got some errors, which I won’t even bother fixing as these apps don’t fulfill my needs.

5

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/extensibility/starting-to-develop-visual-studio-extensions?view=vs-2019

I don’t know what were you searching for but literally the first result is an extension to hide comments and for C#

4393003--399394--upload_2019-4-4_18-27-0.png

6

I had a large post here (regarding error), but this is the link you should install from with Visual Studio 2015 upwards:

Its not at all what I asked for or sought, but it does what I need it to do. Anyways, thanks.

7

Not at all what you asked? based on your original post it’s very close to what you wanted and that was just the first result. Anyways like I said you can make exactly the like you want via custom code and github and net is flooded with code examples. Good luck.

8

Well, not quite. It doesn’t get rid of the space between each line (the text is replaced with a bubble). The comment and the space still take their space. All this extension did was replace comment with an icon, but factually my code didn’t become smaller out of it. So I still end up with a two line gap.