showdoc

ShowDoc is an online documentation tool built for software development teams. It solves a common frustration: when someone joins a project or takes over from a colleague, there is often no organized place to find API references, database descriptions, or technical guides. Documentation ends up scattered across email threads, instant messages, and Word files on individual computers. ShowDoc replaces that chaos with a shared, browser-accessible space where everyone on the team can read and contribute.

The tool supports three main types of documents. API documents describe how a server's endpoints work, including what parameters each one accepts and what it returns. This is useful when a backend team needs to communicate with a frontend team or a mobile app team. Data dictionary documents describe a database structure, spelling out what each table and field means. Explanation documents are general-purpose pages for writing team guidelines, tool instructions, or technical standards.

Editing is done in Markdown, a lightweight text format that converts to clean HTML. The editor includes templates for common document types, so you can insert an API template or a data dictionary template and fill in the blanks rather than starting from scratch. Each page keeps a history of previous versions, so you can roll back a change if needed.

Projects can be set to public or private. Public projects are readable by anyone with the link. Private projects require a password. Project owners can add team members who can edit content, transfer ownership to someone else, or export the whole project as an offline document.

ShowDoc can be hosted on your own server using an automated installer, or used through the hosted version at showdoc.com.cn. The code is written in PHP and released under the Apache 2.0 license, which allows free use and modification.