Dash 3 - API Docs & Snippets. Integrates with Xcode, Alfred, TextWrangler and many more. App Reviews

An already-great and super useful app and its always getting better!

This is a fantastic app, I love it and use it everyday but it is missing one vital feature. Everything I possibly can uses VI keybindings and I *almost* never need to use the mouse while developing or troubleshooting something, until I launch Dash :/ What really bothers me is that I asked the developer about it and a prior version had VI keybindings but they were removed, and apparently real-estate on the preferences panel is a such a premium that they are unwilling to just put a checkbox that allows you to enable VI keybindings. I personally dont think adding 1 line to the Behavior section on the general tab would ruin the over asthetic but hey Im crazy that way. Other than this one, for me, really nice to have feature this is a fantastic app and highly recomended.

I am currently undergoing the daunting task of teaching myself web development. I am constantly having to search through documentation to wrap my head around things. After finding and downloading this program I get answers so much faster. At first I was nervous that these would be their own documentation on languages. After using the program the searches go directly to the source. So HTML/CSS/Javascript will pull up MDN when you search for them. Not only does Atom (text editor) have a plugin that makes it work with dash, you can select any words and right click and there is a look up in dash feature. I haven’t downloaded the mobile apps but I am sure they are fantastic as well! Overall really well done

I can count on 1 hand how many reviews I’ve written.. I should do better.. but Dash is worth it. I read the 1 start reviews, all but one were complaining about price.. seriously? A good product is worth it’s value. If those 1-star people homeless on the street, then perhaps they have an issue, but if they are developers, and hopefully getting paid for it, then cost is not what they should be looking at, but value. If you get back more than you spend, you have increased overall value. Dash does that, and more. I have many apps, and I’ve dropped a couple bucks here and there for lots of duds.. Dash was well worth the $10, and I use it daily, throught the day. It’s my ready reference.. sure, there are search engines, but Dash is significantly faster than pulling out a search engine. I’ll say that it takes a little effort to wean yourself from the search engines, but once you start reaching for Dash on a regular basis. you find it’s much faster and more efficient, and when you start bookmarking, you can get to the Python String Format specification page when you need it..

Version 2 was very useful. It easily pulled in the Apple documentation and other sources to produce a consolidated reference compendium. Version 3 rarely helps me and offers everything I don’t want. I bought it and kinda sorry I did. I try it every time, and every time I have to roll out to Google to get what I need. Search for "xcode headers” and headers turns “red” which either means it is really important or it is not in the documentation.

I use Dash every day for both work and personal development. It has sped up my documentation lookups to the point that when I have to google or bing for something (looking at you, MSDN), I feel like I’m stepping back into an earlier era. Dash has never crashed on me, nor has it done anything weird. It just works, and it just finds what I want, lightning-fast.

I opened up the app and was instantly surprised by the vast number of doc sets available. So I went about downloading a bunch of them. It was the docs for Bash that really pushed it over the edge for me. I search through the Bash man page for stuff since I write it only every so often. Dash instantly made the content on that page far more accessible. I’m sold and will be spreading the word about this wonderful app!

For example, looking for “Transitioning to ARC Release Notes”: arc Many results, but not the document requested. Dash just looks for the characters a, r and c, in that order anywhere in a class name, method name or document title, so it will return documents titles like “bsearch”. “arc” Looks for the characters “, a, r, c and “, in that order (yes, including the quotes). The few useless results include: python easy_install fails with "assembler for architecture … arcrelease Will return the document, but also: outputImageProviderFromBufferWithPixelFormat:pixelsWide: pixelsHigh:baseAddress:bytesPerRow:releaseCallback:…. releasenotesarc Will not find it because the word “ARC” appears before “Release Notes” in the actual document. It’s sad that I often need to do a search on the web, just to discover the title of a document, so I can find it in Dash. Add to that that it doesn’t search the document contents itself unless you are looking at your document already. Dash really needs a better search functionality. The user needs to be able to differentiate between whole and partial words. It needs a separate text field for in-page searches.

All the docsets I use regularly are at my fingertips while keeping those I may need nearby, but not cluttering up the results (Profiles). I don’t use the snippets so can’t comment on that, but it does what it is supposed to without ever getting in the way. It just works, which is pretty incredible when you look at the number of different docsets it handles.

Dash is the only way I ever read documentation anymore. No matter the language, I’ll download the docset into Dash; then, during development, I can look up just about anything just by hitting my Alfred shortcut and typing “dash (thing)”. It’s saved me countless hours of Googling and trawling through online documentation. Well worth the money for the full version.

Dash has completely replaced Xcode and a myraid of websites used to find/read API documentation for me. I absoltely love a fast, consistent, easy-to-use documentation browser. Xcode and websites are so slow, but Dash is just as its name implies…fast! I also love that it keeps my CocoaPods/Ruby Gem documentation up-to-date. When I update my CocoaPod/Gem, within a relatively short period of time I see a notification that my documentation has been updated in Dash! Truly spectacular.

I had avoided upgrading to Dash 3 because I had paid for the full version of Dash 2 and version 3 had no new features I needed. Sadly, the App Store Certificate Bug from last week “corrupted” my downloaded copy of Dash 2 and I had to re-download it, but I can’t because it isn’t available. I like the app, but I’m working in langauges now where Dash isn’t as helpful as it is with say, Ruby, Python or Javascript, so the value in upgrading really isn’t there for me. I do however use it enough to want to continue to realize the value I paid for with version 2.

Before Dash, I would be bookmarking web pages and saving pdf manuals to have documentation available. With Dash, I eliminate that hassle and have all my documentation available in one, conveniently accessible location. I love the feature of having multiple tabs open in the window as I need to cross-reference php and WordPress functions. This app helps me write better code because its ease of use eliminates the temptation to forego investigating unfamiliar or new techniques.

This application is so useful and well done that it has become one of my must have development tools. Having all those API documentations stored locally with great unified search, read and annotation features saves so much time compared to using native API doc websites. I love the hexdoc docset integration which came with version 3, and the iOS remote integration is also great for using an iPad as a documentation screen. So much worth the $25. Great stuff, keep up the good work.

Makes reading documentation so much faster and easier. A+++

I bought the Dash 2 license. I didn’t need to buy it, in the end it’s free, but I wanted to support the developer/product so I got the license. Dash 3 come over and I have to pay again. It’s not about money issues, it’s about the mindset of the creator. Why would you make people to pay something again when they don’t need it and most of the time they do it because they want to be grateful with you. Very dissapointed.

Dash’s fast search and access to a large collection of documentation sets was an instant productivity boost for me. The project I work on uses C++, Python, JavaScript, OpenGL, and the iOS SDK, all of which are available through Dash. Much faster than Xcode and the ad hoc web searching I was doing before, and now a vital tool that I use daily.

This is a well-made and essential developer tool. The integrations with Xcode and TextMate mean that I can learn one documentation system for all my projects (I’m all over the place WRT languages) and the bookmark syncing is a life changer for the several systems I wind up using. The idea of “search for this class, space, now search within that help” is genius and makes finding the right part of the docs as easy as “os.path directory” to find everything related to directories in the Python library os.path. Oh, get the iOS version as well. It’s great as a second screen here.

I love it. Dont know how I worked before I ahd this. An absolute must for every programmer.

I’m not a developer. I’m just learning. I’ve had this app since version 2.x. As I continue to learn, this has proven itself an invaluable reference. It saves me from a lot of time scavenging the web. It also allows me to save my code snippets, and sync them on Dropbox. I’ve only a couple wishes: 1. It would be great were I able to sync docsets across Macs. 2. It would be handy to have access to cose snippets on the companion iOS app. This app is really intuitive. It has integrations with a number of applications, like Coda and Sublime. I’m really happy with this.