How to Use the Documentation

This discusses how to get the most out of the documentation and find what you need.

Table of Contents Types of Documentation and Resources Wiki Navigation Searching Documentation ATF Overviews Useful Wiki Resources

Types of Documentation and Resources

You have a variety of resources for learning about ATF, some of them not documentation in the usual sense.

• Wiki. Most documentation is on the wiki, and its main component is the ATF Programmer's Guide. You can learn about or access most resources from the wiki.
• PDF Documents. Older documentation is in the PDF format. You can download PDF documents from ATF Documentation. You can also download an index for searching the PDF documents from this page.
• ATF API Reference. This CHM document is also downloadable from ATF Documentation.
• Source. This is the ultimate ATF reference. In fact, information in the ATF API Reference is derived from ATF source code comments. When you mouse over API symbols in the source, a tooltip displays a description from the source comments. The ATF Structure topics will help you maneuver through the source. In particular, ATF Assemblies describes how ATF source is divided into projects and assemblies; ATF Namespaces lists some of ATF's namespaces. For a survey of classes in ATF by namespace, see Class Survey.
• Test files. ATF's unit test suites test the fundamental ATF classes and functions, and in doing so, demonstrate how to use these classes and functions. For more information, see Tests as Documentation.

Wiki Navigation

Each page's sidebar links to the documentation's major topic areas. The About section provides general information about ATF, such as ATF Features & Benefits and ATF Requirements & Dependencies. The Learning section takes you to the in depth topics, such as How To and ATF Programmer's Guide. At the top of the sidebar, the Pages button drops down a list of pages in the ATF wiki that you can expand to see the entire list.

Pages in the ATF Programmer's Guide have a Topics in this Section footer that links to all the other pages in that section.

Most pages have a Table of Contents linking to the page's headings.

Searching Documentation

The ATF wiki is fully searchable. Simply enter "ATF search topic" in your favorite search engine to find what you're looking for.

Of course, you can also search individual pages. There are several lengthy pages that you might want to search for terms:

• ATF Glossary: Glossary defining ATF technical terms.
• Class Survey: List of various representative and useful ATF classes, listed by namespace.
• Important ATF Components: Describes ATF components that provide capabilities needed by many applications, such as common menus and menu items.

You can also download and search the ATF API Reference, which is a CHM file. It is organized by namespace.

PDF documents are also searchable, and their search index can be downloaded from ATF Documentation.

ATF source is also searchable with the standard Visual Studio or other tools.

ATF Overviews

Of course, you should start with ATF Getting Started! This links to several useful topics, such as the ATF Overview video (also available in Japanese) and High Level View of ATF.

ATF Functional Areas lists various functional areas and indicates the namespaces and frameworks to look at.

Important ATF Components lists important ATF components you can use in your application with little effort and Finding ATF Components suggests ways to find ATF components with various capabilities.

Useful Wiki Resources

• ATF Getting Started: The starting point for learning ATF.
• ATF Tutorials: These tutorials allow you to get your feet wet developing an ATF application.
• How To: These topics tell you how to do various tasks.
• ATF Programmer's Guide: Most of the documentation is part of this Guide, which is organized by general areas, such as ATF Application Basics and Key ATF Application Features.
• ATF Code Samples Discussions: In depth discussions of how each sample's code works.
• ATF Reference: Links to the API Reference, glossary, and other references.