Maven Plugin Documentation

Introduction

How Did the Plugin Documentation Standard Form?

The plugin documentation standard was created to address the frequent complain of lack of documentation, specifically on Maven's plugins. The standard was based on the suggestion made on the maven-dev mailing list with some refinements. It is a community consensus of what basic documentation a Maven plugin should have.

Why Do We Need a Plugin Documentation Standard?

The standard was developed not as set of rules, but rather as a set of guidelines to help plugin developers better document their plugins, in order to the benefit of the users of the plugin. The standard reminds plugin developers of the important, default details that should always be documented when developing a plugin, in order to speed plugin adoption for new users.

Plugin Documentation Key

Status:
Completed In Progress Not Started or Unassigned (may be taken by someone else)

Docck:
Result when running maven-docck-plugin. The number indicated is the number of errors reported by docck. is used when it passes (0 errors) docck.

Nav:
The Navigation links complies with the plugin documentation standards. Pass Fail

Home:
The Plugin's home page complies with the documentation standards. Pass Fail

JIRA Issues:
Documentation-related open issues. Mostly from questions posted in the mailing lists.

Published:
Whether the plugin site has been published. Published Not published Unknown

Maven Distributed Plugins

Plugin	Assigned To	JIRA Issues
Maven Ant Plugin	Vincent Siveton	MANT-15
Maven AntRun plugin	Allan Ramirez	MANTRUN-55
Maven Archetype Plugin	Franz See	ARCHETYPE-45
Maven Assembly Plugin	Edwin Punzalan	MASSEMBLY-122
Maven Clean Plugin	Edwin Punzalan	MCLEAN-13 MCLEAN-14
Maven Compiler Plug-in	Edwin Punzalan	MCOMPILER-38
Maven Dependency Plugin	Allan Ramirez	MDEP-30
Maven Deploy Plug-in	Allan Ramirez	MDEPLOY-35
Maven DOCCK Plugin	Dennis Lundberg
Maven EAR Plugin	Edwin Punzalan	MEAR-32
Maven Eclipse Plugin	Edwin Punzalan	MECLIPSE-125
Maven EJB Plugin	Pete Marvin King	MEJB-17
Maven Enforcer Plugin	Brian Fox
Maven Help Plugin	Maria Odea Ching	MPH-17
Maven IDEA Plug-in	Edwin Punzalan	MIDEA-59
Maven Install Plug-in	Allan Ramirez	MINSTALL-27
Maven Jar Plug-in	Dennis Lundberg	MJAR-48
Maven One Plugin	Dennis Lundberg	MONE-4
Maven Plugin Plugin	Maria Odea Ching	MPLUGIN-23
Maven RAR Plugin	Allan Ramirez	MRAR-12
Maven Release Plug-in	John Tolentino	MRELEASE-141
Maven Resources Plug-in	Franz See	MRESOURCES-23
Maven SCM Plug-in	Pete Marvin King	MSCM-218
Maven Site Plugin	Maria Odea Ching	MSITE-158
Maven Source plugin	Maria Odea Ching	MSOURCES-9
Maven Surefire Plug-in	Allan Ramirez	MSUREFIRE-147
Maven WAR Plugin	Pete Marvin King	MWAR-48
Maven Verifier plugin	Denis Cabasson	MVERIFIER-2

Maven Distributed Reports/Plugins

Plugin	Assigned To	JIRA Issues
Maven Changelog Plugin	Maria Odea Ching	MCHANGELOG-40
Maven Changes Plugin	Dennis Lundberg
Maven Checkstyle Plugin	Maria Odea Ching	MCHECKSTYLE-49
Maven Clover Plugin	Vincent Massol	MCLOVER-47
Maven Javadoc Plug-in	Maria Odea Ching	MJAVADOC-79
Maven JXR Plug-in	Maria Odea Ching	MJXR-14
Maven PMD Plug-in	Mike Perham	MPMD-34
Maven Project Info Reports	Pete Marvin King	MPIR-50
Maven Surefire Report Plugin	Allan Ramirez	MSUREFIREREP-24

References

Navigation Standard

Use the following template for your site.xml:

Template for site.xml

Home Page Standard

Template for index.apt

FAQ Page Standard

Template for faq.fml

Font Styles

Make the text font styles standard for:

goals - monospaced
i.e. ( <<<install:install>>>)
parameter - monospaced
i.e. ( <<<-DparameterName>>> )

Maven Docck Plugin currently checks if a plugin has the following:

Project Descriptor Requirements

Documentation Item	Implemented	Comment
modelVersion		implemented by maven
groupId		implemented by maven
artifactId		implemented by maven
version		implemented by maven
name
description
url
issueManagement
prerequisites >> maven
inceptionYear
mailingList		WARN only
scm		WARN only
organization
plugin report
licenses
verify URLS

Project Site Pages

Documentation Item	Implemented	Comment
site(html/apt/xdoc)
index(html/apt/xdoc)
usage(html/apt/xdoc)
examples
FAQ

Project Site Descriptor

Documentation Item	Implemented	Comment
index.html link
plugin-info.html link
usage.html link
faq.html link

Plugin Javadoc Annotation Requirement

Documentation Item	Implemented	Comment
parameter description
mojo description