Readme Generator

A simple plugin to convert a HTML post or page content into a plugin readme.txt file.

Author:	Paul Stuttard (profile at wordpress.org)
WordPress version required:	3.1
WordPress version tested:	3.6.1
Plugin version:	1.0.2
Added to WordPress repository:	15-06-2011
Last updated:	12-09-2013 Warning! This plugin has not been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.
Rating, %:	0
Rated by:	0
Plugin URI:	http://www.houseindorset.co.uk/plugins/readme...
Total downloads:	1 261
Active installs:	10+
Click to start download

This plugin enables plugin authors to write their plugin readme content inside a page (or set of pages) or post on their site and then at the click of a button generate the associated valid readme.txt file automatically.

Features

Simple HTML to Markdown conversion
Helper widget on Post/Page edit screen to set plugin specific options and Generate the readme
Global options to set the default values and configure the plugin’s behaviour
Facility to insert a ‘starter’ template into the current post
Basic i18n verification and .pot file generation
Handles single page based readme or page with children

Latest Version – 1.0.2

Add support for Generation of contextual Help Data Files
Minor Bug Fixes

Future Updates

Some improvements that I hope to make to the plugin:

Take content from ‘Visual’ Post/Page edit
Add popup widget when post displayed showing Header details, and links

Options

The plugin has a number of options some are saved locally with individual posts/pages and some are global and are used to modify the behaviour of the plugin.

Plugin Name

Sets the name of the Plugin for which the readme.txt file is to be generated. This options is saved for each plugin page/post.

Contributors

This sets the list of contributors for the plugin. This option is saved for each plugin page/post, and the default for this value can be set in the global options.

Donate Link

This sets the donate link for the plugin. This option is saved for each plugin page/post, and the default for this value can be set in the global options.

Required Version

This sets the minimum required version of WordPress that the plugin will work with. This option is saved for each plugin page/post, and the default for this value can be set in the global options.

Tested Version

This sets the highest version of WordPress that the plugin has been tested against. This option is saved for each plugin page/post, and the default for this value can be set in the global options.

Stable Version

This sets the stable version of the plugin that should be downloaded by users. This option is saved for each plugin page/post.

Readme Location

The plugin subdirectory where the ‘readme.txt’ should be written, usually set to the plugin directory. This is relative to the WordPress plugin directory ‘wp-content/plugins’.

Ignore Sections

If there are any sections or sub-sections that are in the post that should not be present in the readme.txt, then enter their names here as a comma separated list.

Heading Type

This global setting, defines what html element the plugin will use to define the plugin top level headings & sections.

Sub-Heading Type

This global setting, defines what html element the plugin will use to define the plugin sub-headings & sections.

Plugin Category

If all your plugin posts are of a specific category, then put the category’s slug or ID’s in this setting so that the Readme Generator is enabled by default for these posts.

Parent Page

If all your plugin posts are children of a specific post/page, then put the post’s slug or ID’s in this setting so that the Readme Generator is enabled by default for these posts.

Readme Filename

The name of the file that the Readme Generator will create, by default this is ‘readme.txt’, if you want to keep your existing readme.txt set this to something else.

Parse Sub-Pages

If this option is selected then it will also append any pages that are children of the current page to the readme.txt file.

Generate POT

The plugin can generate a .pot file, however this is quiet primitive, enable this option to generate the POT file. This option is saved for each plugin page/post, and the default for this value can be set in the global options.

POT Filename

The name of the .pot file that the Readme Generator will create, by default this is ‘i18n/%SLUG%.pot’. The location is relative to the directory of the ‘readme.txt’, and the phrase %SLUG% will be replaced with the Plugin Name (e.g. plugin-name).

Translations

The plugin comes with translation support but as yet no translations are included. Please refer to the WordPress Codex for more information about activating the translation. If you want to help to translate the plugin to your language, please have a look at the i18n/readme-gen.pot file which contains all definitions and may be used to create a language specific .po file. If you do create a translation please contact me and I will add it to the plugin ready for the next update.

Screenshots
FAQ

I’ve tried the plugin and it doesn’t do what I want, help?

If you think the plugin doesn’t work, please try contacting me and I will endeavour to help. You can either start a forum topic on the WordPress site or leave a comment on my site on the plugin page Readme Generator Page.

How is the Content converted into the readme.txt?

The plugin by default will copy all the post content into the readme.txt but it tries to convert some HTML markup into ‘readme.txt’ syntax. Roughly it does the following:

Convert <h3>Heading</h3> into == Heading ==
Convert <h5>Heading</h5> into = Heading =
Convert <ul><li>Item</li></ul> into * Item
Convert <ol><li>Item</li></ol> into 1. Item
Convert Code into `Code`
Convert <a href="LINK">Text</a> into [Text](LINK)
Convert <em>Text</em> into *Text*
Convert <stong>Text</strong> into **Text**

How is the Plugin header generated?

You plugin header is generated using the settings that have been entered into the ‘Generate Readme File’ options box on the page/post that you wish to use as the basis of the readme.txt. These settings are stored with the post/page as metadata, they are saved when you update/create the post.

Does the plugin generate .pot files automatically?

If enabled the plugin will attempt to find all the ‘__()‘ and ‘_e()‘ items in all the php files in the plugin’s directory and generate a standard .pot file using the strings that it finds.
It will provide warnings if it finds more than one text-domain, or if the text domain is missing. However the php file parsing is quiet primitive and unmatched braces or quotes will probably confuse it (‘()”‘). Probably better to use xgettext, if you have it!

Can you show me some examples?

The readme file for this plugin was generated using the ‘Readme Generator’ plugin.

The original post can be seen on my site’s plugin page, in your browser select ‘view page source’ to see the HTML that created it (inside the ‘content’ div).
You can see the readme.txt file that was generated by downloading the plugin or directly through this link.
You can see how WordPress renders this readme.txt at the WordPress Plugin repository for the Readme Generator plugin.

Hide FAQ

ChangeLog

Choose right WordPress plugin from thousands others in a moment