[Xen-API] improving the XenAPI docs

[Dave Scott <Dave.Scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Iâve been thinking about how to improve the XenAPI reference[1]. The things I 
like about the reference are:

- itâs generated from the IDL, so itâs always up to date
- itâs got everything in it

The things I donât like about the reference are:

- itâs got everything in itâ in alphabetical order, rather than in any kind of 
usefulness order
- the descriptions of fields/ functions areâ terse (and often tautologous)
- there are no in-line examples

Iâd like to improve the reference by making 2 extensions:

1. Iâd like to add tags to each field and function, and allow the docs to be 
searched by tag (e.g. find all the fields and functions related to âsnapshotsâ) 
A well-known tag name would be âcoreâ meaning âstuff you need to knowâ and I 
propose we either filter for that by default, or at least re-order the elements 
so we have core first.

2. Iâd like to create a sparse file overlay per-API in the xen-api repo. An 
overlay file â if it exists â would override whatever terse description exists 
in the raw IDL. The overlay would be written in markdown and would contain 
paragraphs of description, links and example usages. It would be easy to add an 
overlay to the repo without breaking the build (i.e. thereâs no need to keep 
all the docs inside the code as well-quoted strings where you have to satisfy 
the compiler).

Thoughts/ suggestions/ improvements welcome!

Cheers,
Dave

[1] Thereâs more than one copy on the web, but hereâs the one I was looking at: 
http://xapi-project.github.io/xen-api/index.html
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