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Creating cross-version compatible documentation with Workbench


Wolfram Workbench allows you to create documentation for your own packages that is similar to the build-in documentation center. Integrating this type of documentation with the documentation center is possible starting from Mathematica 6, and hence I would like to create packages whose documentation nicely integrates with Mathematica 6, 7, 8, and 9.



However, Workbench doesn't support this out of the box. Its documentation tools seem to be a spin-off from WRI own tools to create version-specific documentation, so it is no wonder creating cross-version compatible docs in Workbench is nearly impossible.


So far, I've identified the following obstacles to creating cross-version compatible docs:



  1. Documentation indices built with Mathematica <= 8 are not compatible with Mathematica 9, so docs built with <= 8 are not searchable in 9. See this workaround.

  2. Documentation pages built with a given version of Mathematica always give the "This notebook was created in a more recent version of Mathematica" dialog warning in older versions. See this workaround.

  3. The PacletInfo.m syntax has changed with Mathematica 9; it now requires a "Kernel" extension. This chokes the Mathematica 6 PacletManager, ruling out docs simultaneously compatible with 6 and 9. See this workaround.

  4. Workbench 2 can only properly build docs with Mathematica 7 or 8. Mathematica 6 returns malformed notebooks (see this workaround by Simon Rochester), and 9 freezes halfway the build process for large packages.

  5. Docs build with lower version look pretty bad on Mathematica 9. See this partial workaround.


Points 2 and 5 are by no means deal-breakers, but 1 in combination with 4 certainly is. I've managed to find work-arounds for most of these issues, which I've posted below.



If someone has identified similar issues or has better workarounds, I'm all ears!




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