We have added a new feature to Understand called Annotations. Annotations give the user the option to add comments or notes to code without changing the source code directly.

These comments can be displayed inline, or can be turned off to only be seen in hover text so they don’t disrupt the normal flow of the code when you don’t want to see them.  Each annotation can be “tagged” with key value pairs which can be useful for organizing data using certain keywords, differentiating between authors, and any other identifiers you may want to use.  You can search using our Annotations Search GUI for quick access to exactly what you are looking for.

Annotations are saved in a SQLite database file which can also be modified and searched directly if desired.

Annotations are “linked” to entities in Understand and can be added quickly by right clicking on the entity, selecting ‘Add/Edit Annotations’, or they can be added from the top level menu. 

So, what happens to the annotation if the entity that it was linked to is deleted?  It is still there, it just doesn’t “belong” anywhere so it won’t show up in the in-line annotations.  These orphan annotations can be seen, and linked again to another entity in the ‘Manage Annotations’ top level menu.

This new feature is available to use in Understand build 618. We didn’t want to wait for the documentation to be completed before we made Annotations available so if you have any questions, please email us at support@scitools.com.  We expect the documentation to be available in the next month or so.  Any feedback on this new feature is appreciated.

We’ve added a new option to highlight entities that are defined but not used.

To enable this option go into Tools->Options->Editor->Advanced->Unused Entities

Right now this only works for functions and variables. Let us know if you find it useful, and if there are other entities you want it added for.

With build 596 we’ve added support to Understand for Objective-C and Objective-C++, and we would love your feedback on it.  This support is added as part of the new strict analyzer, so make sure your project is fully configured to get an accurate parse. Please point Understand and your Objective-C code, and if you run into any problems or questions, shoot us an email – support@scitools.com

The new interactive Clustered Call Graphs show the function call graph, organized by file. There are several variants of this graph: Call, Call-by, Butterfly and Internal Call. They can also be accessed from the function, class, file or architecture level. These graphs can all be accessed from the Graphical View right click menu for the entity.

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There is a new option for identifying and defining missing macros. The new tool shows what macros are not defined as well as how and where they are referenced. This makes it easy to see which missing Macro definitions would have the largest impact on your project.

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Build 571 contains a completely re-written version of ‘und’, the command line interface for Understand.

The commands have been standardized and the tool should be much easier to use. Because of the extensive changes, this new version is not backwards compatible with older versions of und. The old und will still ship and has been renamed ‘undlegacy’ – current users will need to change the name of the binary for scripts to continue to work.

In general the syntax for running commands are similar to Subversion and should be much more intuitive than previous versions.

The new version also includes a cool new interactive mode that lets you specify a database and then continually run commands in it, similar to MySQL.

The help documentation has been flushed out extensively and should be much more useful – just run und help for a complete overview of how to use this great new tool. Also this post steps through each different method of using und and demonstrates some of the most common commands: Integrate Understand with your build system.

With Understand 2.6 Build 560 we’ve added a powerful new tool for creating C/C++ projects. The Parse Improvement Tool helps you quickly find missing include paths for your project which will lead to more accurate parsing and project information. Previously Understand relied on you knowing exactly where the include files were and specifying the path. Now there is a tool to help you find those missing files.

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With this weekend’s release of Understand 2.6 Build 551, we are pleased to announce support for the COBOL language.  We’d love your feedback on it, and if you have some sample code you would like us to look at, we’d love to see it.

Grab it at www.getunderstand.com.

You can now analyze PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript files with Understand. Just select “Web” In the New Project Wizard and add your files.

We’re excited about this new feature and would like your feedback, please let us know what you think or if you run into any problems.

We’ve added a new dependency graph with some great interactive capabilities. If you’ve been looking for a way to visualize your high level code layout and intra-project dependencies, this is it. Watch this short video to get a taste of how useful these graphs are.