"Lack of docs" whining has been a hot topic for years. Is there a viable solution? I think so.

[UnrealEnterprise]

BTW, are you talking about "Go to definition" option? It's there for long time
And it's get some love in 4.18, jumping directly to function in code, not just it's source file.

I was asking for something like this in the BP Graph Editor. If its already available please let me know.
Show us a screen shot of your setup if possible as I just get a grayed out 'View Documentation' option...

 

Spoiler

[krisgoku2]

I have to speak on someone who complained about this all the time. I started off a complete noob knowing nothing, looking at the docs and seeing odd computer science terms told me I had to study Computer Science. In a way they gave me experience to be able to look through a lot of documentation and skill sets. hey i went from a thousand lines of code wow... to meh just a thousand lines of code. But they do forewarn it's not finished.

[Moth Doctor]

I was asking for something like this in the BP Graph Editor. If its already available please let me know.
Show us a screen shot of your setup if possible as I just get a grayed out 'View Documentation' option...

Well, yeah... Probably it's available only if you have VS installed. I have it on every machine.
See attached screenshot.

I understand that in theory it would be nice to have code preview in Blueprints. In practice it could be very cumbersome....
If you preview code, you really want to have syntax highlighting, ability to easily jump between .h and .cpp, inspect related methods, variables. You have it all in IDE and it would be a wasted effort to duplicate some of these features just for preview.

But there's good news! Support for Visual Studio Code is coming with 4.18. VSS is lightweight IDE, you could use as your "preview tool"
https://trello.com/c/A1STdvap/198-su...-mac-and-linux

[UnrealEnterprise]

But there's good news! Support for Visual Studio Code is coming with 4.18. VSS is lightweight IDE, you could use as your "preview tool" https://trello.com/c/A1STdvap/198-su...-mac-and-linux

Good to know, Cheers Dude!

[Ninjin]

I was asking for something like this in the BP Graph Editor. If its already available please let me know.
Show us a screen shot of your setup if possible as I just get a grayed out 'View Documentation' option...

It should be available in a C++ project, but in a Blueprint Project it's not.

[teak421]

The gold standard in documentation in my opinion is QT. Here's a link to a class: http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qactiongroup.html -- Go roam there and if UE4 could emulate something like that, game over! How we get there...? Victor's idea...? Not sure...

teak

ps: I just randomly picked a class...

[teak421]

We have been wanting to enable the community to help us on the documentation for quite a while. The wiki is a good outlet, but it doesn't help to have up to date info on the wiki contradicted by outdated info in the documentation. Unfortunately, we had neither the infrastructure to build the pipeline nor the resources to deal with the influx of submissions.

The good news is we are getting close to having the infrastructure we need to be able to make a sustainable pipeline. I don't know exactly what that pipeline will look like yet, but at the very least it would enable you to send us feedback. Ideally, we want to be able to empower community members to update content directly and have that go through a review process to ensure the quality of the content we publish. That's where resources on our side come into contention. I think we can do it, though.

I don't have a timeline to share of when all this will start to trickle out, but we will share our plans as they are ready for a wider audience.

Hi. This was 1.5 months ago... Any news on when you can share the improvements? Will there be examples attached to pages (like how QT5 and MS does)? Will the documentation be more than just automated code comments? Can you give us a sneak peek of what is coming down the pipe in terms of documentation improvements? Thanks.

teak

[Jeff Wilson]

Hi teak,

Regarding the infrastructure improvements, in addition to the potential community contribution benefits mentioned previously, these new tools will empower the members of our team to be more productive - this means more documentation can be written. They will enable us to better track the state of our documentation - this means documentation will be more up to date. There is a lot more to this initiative that we think will result in a better information, better coverage, and better experience for everyone, and we plan to share details about it with you very soon.

As far as examples in the C++ API reference, we actually already have these in some instances as you can see here:

UWorld::SpawnActor
AActor::NotifyActorBeginOverlap
FTimerManager::SetTimer

These are just a few of the existing examples, but we realize we are far from where we want to be. Improving the C++ API reference is our top priority. We want it filled with useful information. We want it to have meaningful example code. That’s not an easy task and it’s not an overnight fix. We are working on a long-term, sustainable plan to improve and maintain this area of our documentation. We are committed to this and you should hold us to the fire and call us out if you don’t see meaningful changes happening.

[teak421]

Hi teak,

Regarding the infrastructure improvements, in addition to the potential community contribution benefits mentioned previously, these new tools will empower the members of our team to be more productive - this means more documentation can be written. They will enable us to better track the state of our documentation - this means documentation will be more up to date. There is a lot more to this initiative that we think will result in a better information, better coverage, and better experience for everyone, and we plan to share details about it with you very soon.

As far as examples in the C++ API reference, we actually already have these in some instances as you can see here:

UWorld::SpawnActor
AActor::NotifyActorBeginOverlap
FTimerManager::SetTimer

These are just a few of the existing examples, but we realize we are far from where we want to be. Improving the C++ API reference is our top priority. We want it filled with useful information. We want it to have meaningful example code. That’s not an easy task and it’s not an overnight fix. We are working on a long-term, sustainable plan to improve and maintain this area of our documentation. We are committed to this and you should hold us to the fire and call us out if you don’t see meaningful changes happening.

Thanks for the update..! Appreciate your efforts.....

teak

[VictorBurgos]

Hi teak,

Regarding the infrastructure improvements, in addition to the potential community contribution benefits mentioned previously, these new tools will empower the members of our team to be more productive - this means more documentation can be written. They will enable us to better track the state of our documentation - this means documentation will be more up to date. There is a lot more to this initiative that we think will result in a better information, better coverage, and better experience for everyone, and we plan to share details about it with you very soon.

As far as examples in the C++ API reference, we actually already have these in some instances as you can see here:

UWorld::SpawnActor
AActor::NotifyActorBeginOverlap
FTimerManager::SetTimer

These are just a few of the existing examples, but we realize we are far from where we want to be. Improving the C++ API reference is our top priority. We want it filled with useful information. We want it to have meaningful example code. That’s not an easy task and it’s not an overnight fix. We are working on a long-term, sustainable plan to improve and maintain this area of our documentation. We are committed to this and you should hold us to the fire and call us out if you don’t see meaningful changes happening.

Glad to see improvements! And I really hope we can get the community contribution workflow in. I would gladly volunteer for that of course

[BrUnO XaVIeR]

The only thing that works in this area is MSDN; but it works because there are millions of contributions by their community every month.
Unity is trying to copy the model, someday they get there, but I fail to see Unreal at that level any time soon.

[darkgaze]

I honestly think we shouldn't be reading the code of the engine to be able to know what the API means. No documentation at all, still confusing for newcomers. I have experience in c++ and this is being so painful that I can't really understand why Epic is not paying a couple of guys to keep updating and adding stuff.