Back in April, I introduced the new adventure I was embarking on with pongasoft. It has been quite a ride but I am very proud to finally be able to release the service: it is called kiwidoc. You can find more information about the service itself on the About page including a description of all the main features that I was able to implement for the beta release. Here is the introduction:

In a few words, kiwidoc can be described as javadoc on steroids. The main goal is to help software developpers quickly find the information about java libraries in a single location:

• proximity search and typeahead allow you to quickly locate what you are looking for.
• IDE-style display shows you the relevant information in a familiar format.
• immediate access to additional information such as library dependencies, manifest, OSGi headers, etc.
• the private view can provide even more details if you need to dig deeper (in order to, for example extend a library or better understand its internals).

Now that the kiwi has been unleashed (there was a little clue on this blog about the name/logo :)), I will be able to talk more freely about the technologies and some of the issues I faced during the development. There is already some information on the Credits page about all the open source libraries I used. Of course due to the amount of work and the fact that I already have a full time job, I was unable to implement all the features I wanted to include in the beta launch, and I have many more coming up to improve the service. But it will also depend on the feedback I am going to receive. So please, leave feedback (on this blog or at feedback@kiwidoc.com), even if you hate the product and you think it is a stupid idea. Finally I wanted to particularly thank my partner, Markus Tuberville, for the awesome logos and icons that he created for the website (including this blog).