As a developer, documentation can always be one of the most difficult tasks to accomplish. It’s absolutely critical to help users of complex software, but it can also be one of the most tedious aspects of the project. After all, why write about what you’ve already built, when you could be building something new instead?
One of the long-standing items on my ICS Calendar to-do list was to complete a more thorough, structured, and searchable documentation page for the very large (73 and growing!) list of parameters available for the ICS Calendar shortcode.
I’m pleased to say that as of today, that page is live! It’s not actually done, because I have some additional filtering and sorting capabilities I want to add in eventually, but I had one simple requirement for the new page: it had to include at least as much information as the old page it was replacing.
For the most part, that has just meant copy-pasting text that was previously in blocks on one page into a new Custom Post Type-based structure, along with designing templates for that CPT. But I also wanted to add some extra elements to the page, namely a more intentional method of displaying the allowed input for parameters that expect specific values, as well as sample code, plus indicators of both Pro-only options, as well as the labels on the Calendar Builder inputs for all of the options, since they don’t always match the shortcode parameter names in completely obvious ways.
There is some additional work behind the scenes that is not yet fully realized, including categories and tags, plus cross-referencing links. Those features and more — some I probably haven’t even thought of yet! — will be on the way in future updates. But for now, I think the page even as it is represents a significant improvement for ICS Calendar users looking for information about how specific parameters work, or even just a comprehensive overview of the options that exist.
Oh yeah… I should probably give you the link! Here it is… but you can also just look for All Parameters in the main navigation as well as in the User Guide sidebar nav.
Enjoy!
—Scott