The story behind 4D’s new Markdown-based documentation site

by Arnaud Schmitt, Head of Technical Documentation at 4D SAS

As many of you know, doc.4d.com has long been managed using an in-house 4D application. However, 4D’s documentation is currently in transition to a new architecture: a Markdown-based documentation site.

This was the topic a few weeks ago during a 4D Method meetup, where I shared our experience about creating and maintaining the new documentation site. You may find this information useful when you are browsing the 4D documentation site, or if you need to create your own documentation.

Why a new documentation site?

Well, the previous 4D documentation website is still alive and very useful, but it’s outdated and tends to be challenging to evolve because of old code. So what we wanted is:

• a new design for new technologies,
• a way to document API with classes, inheritance, hierarchy, etc.
• to have more control over formats, styles, builds, etc.

In this video, I explain in details the reasons behind this transition, the overall architecture, and much more:

Feel free to join me on the 4D Forum if you have any questions.

What is 4DMethod?

4DMethod group is a 4D User Group organized by Brent Raymond. 

The group hosts regularly scheduled meetings to provide a community for both 4D users and developers, discuss technical issues with current systems and ideas for future development, offer coding solutions to new and experienced developers, to name a few.

Know more about the 4DMethod here.