🧠 What Are Internal Documentation Tables?

Internal documentation tables are structured note fields attached directly to key entities inside JCB — including:

• Views (Admin, Site, Custom Admin)
• Templates
• Layouts
• Snippets
• Dynamic GETs
• Field Types
• Custom Code Blocks
• Packaging blueprints
• Component root metadata

These fields allow developers to annotate how or why an entity was built, what it’s intended to do, and what assumptions or dependencies it carries.

You can think of them as:

• Inline architectural notes
• Developer-facing readmes
• Metadata for future maintainers

They help teams (and solo developers over time) remember what each piece of logic was designed to do — directly where it lives.

🧭 Where Are They Used?

Internal documentation tables are visible in the GUI for most major objects. For example:

• Inside an Admin View: “Description” and “Documentation”
• Inside a Snippet: “Description”, “Sample usage”, “Linked views”
• Inside a Field Type: “Technical Notes”, “Rules”, “Joomla version behavior”

These fields are available in both the JCB interface and in the generated README files (if configured).

🛠️ How Do You Use Them?

• Click into any major entity (e.g., a Dynamic GET, Field, Template)
• Locate the documentation field (usually in a “Details” or “Meta” tab)
• Write Markdown-formatted or plain text explanations
• Save — your notes are now stored with the entity and exported during build

In team environments, this ensures future developers understand logic even if they didn’t create it.

📘 Output Options

JCB’s internal documentation system supports:

• Export to Git-managed blueprint repos
• Inclusion in generated READMEs
• Visibility in GUI for all users with access
• Markdown rendering in some views

✅ Benefits

• ✅ Improve project maintainability
• ✅ Reduce onboarding time for new developers
• ✅ Serve as in-place documentation alongside GUI configuration
• ✅ Prevent “tribal knowledge” loss in large or long-running projects
• ✅ Extend with custom fields if more structure is needed

💡 Pro Tip

Use naming conventions (like starting with 🔍 or 🛠️) to tag different types of notes (e.g. technical, UI logic, usage instructions).

Example:

• 🧠 This Dynamic GET expects the current user’s ID as input.
• 🔐 Used only for ACL-protected views.
• 🛠️ See related Template: “user_tasks_list.tpl.php”

📌 Conclusion

JCB’s Internal Documentation Tables give you a centralized, structured, and version-controlled way to annotate your component logic as you build. Stop hunting through external docs — describe your logic where it lives.