Getting Help
Where to look when something does not work as expected
Start with the symptom, not the technology: most problems are answered by one of the pages below, and the rest have a clear reporting path.
Table of Contents
In the Application
- Help menu — the WinForms sample has a Help dropdown with Documentation, Quick Start, Sample Applications, Troubleshooting, API Reference and About.
- F1 — opens the documentation site from the app (falls back to the repository README when the
Helpfolder is not next to the executable). - Status bar — reports the result of every command (validation summaries, workflow status, export paths).
- Tooltips — toolbar buttons and palette items describe their action.
In the Documentation
| You need | Go to |
|---|---|
| Set up a project | Installation (private feed, TFMs, packages) |
| Build your first diagram | Quick Start |
| A runnable app to compare against | Sample Applications |
| What a node type looks like | The family page (each has a rendered component grid) |
| An API member's meaning | API Reference (per-assembly pages with descriptions) |
| A keyboard or mouse shortcut | Keyboard and Mouse |
| Something fails at build or runtime | Troubleshooting |
| Measured performance and tuning | Performance Guide |
| To extend the framework | Creating Custom Families, Extension SDK |
| Release and versioning policy | Release Notes, CHANGELOG |
The site has full-text search in the sidebar: type two or more characters to search page titles, headings and body text across all pages.
From the Code
- IntelliSense — every package ships XML documentation, so member summaries and parameter descriptions appear in the IDE (97% of the public surface is documented).
- Diagnostics — the rendering pipeline catches per-component exceptions and writes them to the debug trace; check the Output window when a component misbehaves.
- Validation — run
DiagramValidator(or the sample's Validate command) to get rule-based feedback with fix suggestions. - Job results — workflow failures carry the failing node, error message and per-node status in
WorkflowResult.
Reporting a Problem
- Check Troubleshooting first — restore, TFM, port-layout, drop-offset, serialization and automation issues are covered there.
- Search the issue tracker for the same symptom.
- Open an issue with: package and version (
Beep.Skiaversion from the NuGet package or the assembly version), target framework, a minimal reproduction (a few lines that build a diagram or run a workflow), expected vs. actual behaviour, and the full exception text if there is one. - For security problems, do not open a public issue — follow SECURITY.md.
Faster reproductions
A diagram that reproduces the issue can be attached as JSON: drawingManager.ToDto() serialized with System.Text.Json is the complete state (components, properties, connections, theme).
Commercial Support
Beep.Skia is developed by The Tech Idea. For commercial support, integration assistance or licensing questions, contact the maintainers through the organization profile on GitHub.