Technical issues with the HTML documentation

[Hibou57]

Prior note: wanted to submit it as an issue on GitHub, but the relevant topic was not in the proposed options. Posted on the user forum and I was told it is not the place for that. So trying here, the last option.

Copy-paste of what was posted on the forum ( https://forums.wxwidgets.org/viewtopic.php?t=52656 ):

Was parsing the documentation for some purpose. It was fine so far (not finished) with documentation for version 3.2.11. Then I noticed there is a newer and better looking documentation version, 3.3.3 with some changes, like some #define changed into constexpr. So wanted to update with this. But doing so, was immediately blocked by an error.

Parsing starts with files.html.

At (685, 1) there is a body close tag, but that's a div close tag which is expected, a div opened at (23, 1). At (684, 1) there is a div close tag. A comment says if close a div with page_container ID. But it does not, it is closing a div opened at (58, 1) and this is div#doc-content. The div#page_container is opened at (23, 1).

At the end of the file, is this:

    <!--EXTRA FOOTER SCRIPT--> 

    </div> <!-- #page_container -->

    </body>

    </html>

It should be:

    <!--EXTRA FOOTER SCRIPT--> 

    </div> 

    </div> <!-- #page_container --> 

    </body> 

    </html>

Checked it is fine with this and the comment is still relevant. Don’t known anything about Doxygen templates and document generation, so can’t tell more, except at the time div#page_container is closed, div#doc-content is not yet closed, and that's the error.

There are multiple occurrences of the same, because after the errors in files.html was fixed, the same error still happens in other files.

Another markup error, at least in documentation version 3.2.11 (not checking 3.3.3 for now, due to previous errors).

In the file for the wxAuiDefaultTabArt class, classwx_aui_default_tab_art.html. At (93, 107) there is a closing P tag and at (97, 1) there is an opening P tag. This should be reversed. Turn the first into an open tag and the second into a close tag, and it’s fine.

The same with the file classwx_aui_simple_tab_art.html

Something else not markup related. In https://docs.wxwidgets.org/latest/classwx_aui_tab_art.html#a1ec38b831d76261146f8e2f28e57f7b7 , for the class wxAuiTabArt the first argument of the method GetBestTabCtrlSize just have a type (wxWindow *) and no name. Seems the name should be wnd, according to the others places where the same argument type appears.

I don’t know C++ (knew it a so much long time ago it was not the same), but I am rather sure an argument is useless without a name, whatever the language. I still may be wrong …

Searching for “const wxAuiNotebookPageArray &” and “const wxSize &” in the same page, shows other place with the same issue (unless it is not an issue).

[Hibou57]

In https://docs.wxwidgets.org/latest/helpfrm_8h.html , wxHF_DEFAULT_STYLE appears as having no value.

[Hibou57]

In https://docs.wxwidgets.org/latest/property_8h.html for version 3.2.11 only, #define wxPG_PROP_PARENTAL_FLAGS appears to have no value. This macro does not exists anymore in 3.3.3 so this may not be important.

[Hibou57]

In https://docs.wxwidgets.org/latest/classwx_p_g_root_property.html the method StringToValue appears to have no name for neither arguments. Their names in the include file are variant, text and argFlags.

I don’t see what can cause this. May be this is a Doxygen bug?

[Hibou57]

Le samedi 18 juillet 2026 à 23:42:04 UTC+2, Hibou57 a écrit :

In the file for the wxAuiDefaultTabArt class, classwx_aui_default_tab_art.html. At (93, 107) there is a closing P tag and at (97, 1) there is an opening P tag. This should be reversed. Turn the first into an open tag and the second into a close tag, and it’s fine.

The same with the file classwx_aui_simple_tab_art.html

Same issue three times in classwx_property_grid.html . This is closing and opening P tags which are to be swapped:

At (103,421) with  (107,1)
At (107,17) with  (111,1)
At (11,17) with (115,1)

[Hibou57]

Le dimanche 19 juillet 2026 à 15:24:44 UTC+2, Hibou57 a écrit :

At (11,17) with (115,1)

Oops: (111,17) instead of (11,17) 

[Hibou57]

Le dimanche 19 juillet 2026 à 15:09:17 UTC+2, Hibou57 a écrit :

In https://docs.wxwidgets.org/latest/classwx_p_g_root_property.html the method StringToValue appears to have no name for neither arguments. Their names in the include file are variant, text and argFlags.

I don’t see what can cause this. May be this is a Doxygen bug?

May be more on this, with a more informative case. In https://docs.wxwidgets.org/latest/classwx_rich_text_buffer_data_object.html in the class wxRichTextBufferDataObject, the second overloading of GetDataSize has an unnamed argument, which is unnamed also in the include file. The argument is not used. May in the previous cases, the arguments was named in the signature but not used in the implementation. It explains things, but it is not that good to expose implementation details which may change or depends on the platform,, in the documentation.

Will stop reporting this king of case, since I'm not sure.

[Mike Musterd]

In c++ the argument name in header or interface does not matter and is optional. Omitting this is therefore not an error in documentation.

Regards, 

Mike

Op zo 19 jul 2026, 17:20 schreef 'Hibou57' via wx-users <wx-u...@googlegroups.com>:

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[Hibou57]

Le samedi 18 juillet 2026 à 23:42:04 UTC+2, Hibou57 a écrit :

In the file for the wxAuiDefaultTabArt class, classwx_aui_default_tab_art.html. At (93, 107) there is a closing P tag and at (97, 1) there is an opening P tag. This should be reversed. Turn the first into an open tag and the second into a close tag, and it’s fine.

Won’t report others to not be annoying. Just to tell it seems to happen with pages with appearances illustration. Most often, it happens three times per page (appearance for GTK, MacOS and Windows) and sometime only once (the banner window appearance has a single picture).

If a future day I have enough time for this, may have a look in the source generating the documentation, to try to guess where the error lies.

Have a nice day

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Sat, 18 Jul 2026 14:32:49 -0700 (PDT) 'Hibou57' via wx-users wrote:

H> Prior note: wanted to submit it as an issue on GitHub, but the relevant
H> topic was not in the proposed options.

I don't know if adding a special category for the documentation problems
is worth it, but in any case you can always choose "Blank issue" to enter
any kind of issue.

H> So trying here, the last option.

The best would really be to open separate issues for each problem you're
reporting, as they are going to be really difficult to track in the emails.
Of course, if you can actually fix the issue, by making changes to the
files under the "interface" directory, opening pull requests with the
changes would be even more welcome.

Could you please open the issues for the problems you've found? Thanks in
advance!

H> I don’t know C++ (knew it a so much long time ago it was not the same), but
H> I am rather sure an argument is useless without a name, whatever the
H> language. I still may be wrong …
H>
H> Searching for “const wxAuiNotebookPageArray &” and “const wxSize &” in the
H> same page, shows other place with the same issue (unless it is not an
H> issue).

This one is indeed not an issue.

Regards,
VZ

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https://www.tt-solutions.com/

[Bryan Petty]

On Saturday, July 18th, 2026 at 3:42 PM, 'Hibou57' via wx-users <wx-u...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> Was parsing the documentation for some purpose.

All of the issues mentioned would be nice to fix (and please do open new issues / PRs for each if you can), but I thought it might be helpful to point out that the wxWidgets docs support generating Doxygen's XML output. You'll likely have much better luck parsing what you need out of those than the HTML output as it should be more reliable too.

on Linux:

docs/doxygen/regen.sh xml

on Windows:

cd docs/doxygen
regen.bat xml

More info: https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/master/docs/contributing/how-to-add-class-documentation.md#running-doxygen

I used to do exactly this to power our old (now retired) IRC bot that offered official docs on demand for classes and functions using https://github.com/tierra/supybot-doxygen

Doxygen also has a new sqlite format if you'd find it easier to use SQL to query the wxWidgets docs too, though it's still not directly supported by our wxWidgets scripts (you'd have to run Doxygen directly). I'm not sure if this includes actual docs, or just symbols though.
https://www.doxygen.nl/manual/config.html#config_sqlite3

Regards,
Bryan Petty

[Hibou57]

Le dimanche 19 juillet 2026 à 21:46:00 UTC+2, Bryan Petty a écrit :

On Saturday, July 18th, 2026 at 3:42 PM, 'Hibou57'

> Was parsing the documentation for some purpose.

All of the issues mentioned would be nice to fix (and please do open new issues / PRs for each if you can), but I thought it might be helpful to point out that the wxWidgets docs support generating Doxygen's XML output. You'll likely have much better luck parsing what you need out of those than the HTML output as it should be more reliable too.

[…]
Regards,
Bryan Petty

Ok,  will open an issue, but prefer to wait I can propose a fix, so will take some time.

Will have a look at the idea of parsing the intermediate Doxygen output, it's indeed a good idea.

With thanks to every one who answered on this topic