boost/tools/quickbook/doc/introduction.qbk

[/
    Copyright 2002,2004,2006 Joel de Guzman, Eric Niebler
    Copyright 2010-2011 Daniel James

    Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0.
    (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at
    http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)
]

[chapter Introduction
    [quickbook 1.6]
    [compatibility-mode 1.5]
    [id quickbook.intro]
    [source-mode teletype]
]

[:[*['["Why program by hand in five days what you can spend five years of your
life automating?]]]

-- Terrence Parr, author ANTLR/PCCTS
]

Well, QuickBook started as a weekend hack. It was originally intended to be a
sample application using __spirit__. What is it? What you are viewing now, this
documentation, is autogenerated by QuickBook. These files were generated from
one master:

[:[@boost:/tools/quickbook/doc/quickbook.qbk quickbook.qbk]]

Originally named QuickDoc, this funky tool that never dies, evolved into a
funkier tool thanks to Eric Niebler who resurrected the project making it
generate __boostbook__ instead of HTML. The __boostbook__ documentation format
is an extension of __docbook__, an SGML or XML based format for describing
documentation.

[tip You don't need to know anything about __boostbook__ or __docbook__
to use QuickBook. A basic understanding of __docbook__ might help, but
shouldn't be necessary. For really advanced stuff you will need to know
__docbook__, but you can ignore it at first, and maybe continue to do so.
]

QuickBook is a WikiWiki style documentation tool geared towards C++
documentation using simple rules and markup for simple formatting tasks.
QuickBook extends the WikiWiki concept. Like the WikiWiki, QuickBook documents are
simple text files. A single QuickBook document can generate a fully linked set
of nice HTML and PostScript/PDF documents complete with images and syntax-
colorized source code.

Features include:

* generate __boostbook__ xml, to generate HTML, PostScript and PDF
* simple markup to link to Doxygen-generated entities
* macro system for simple text substitution
* simple markup for italics, bold, preformatted, blurbs, code samples,
  tables, URLs, anchors, images, etc.
* automatic syntax coloring of code samples
* CSS support