Sometimes, if XML comment tags are not enough for you, you can use macros directly. Macros are defined and used in templates but they can be called directly from comments as well. User can define any number of macros. Macro calls are replaced by their text during compilation.

Using the macros in your comments is deactivated by default because usually you don't need it. You must activate this option manually.

The source code which uses macros doesn't depend on output format, so you can use it with every template supporting given macro. Thus, e.g. for bold text the same macro is used which is defined in each template using the proper specific syntax.

Examples

This is modified example using formatting directives so that it can be used with every output format. First we need to define macro for bold text in every template (it is already predefined in all templates). Let the opening macro for bold be $b$ and closing $bb$. In every HTML based template (Help 2, HTML and CHM) define these macros as follows:

$b$ <b>

$bb$ </b>

And in RTF template define these macros as follows:

$b$ {\b_

$bb$ }

Important, don't forget to type one space character after "{\b" instead of red underscore! The reason is explained bellow.

Now we can use our macros anywhere:

    This is $b$bold text$bb$.

 

Remarks

You can call all macros and commands provided by VSdocman, not only those defined by user. But you should be very careful and do it only when really necessary.

When defining new macros for some output formats you should realize and respect some facts related to given format. For example, tags in RTF format must be separated from following text by space. This is the reason why there is a space after every formatting macro body in all RTF based templates. If you omit this space in definition, you should include space in VSdocman comment after macro call, otherwise RTF reader won't recognize it.

See Also