Annotations are an easy and convenient way for Understand users to add documentation without making changes to the source code directly, yet still have it where you can see it quickly, right in context with the code. We make it really easy to comment on a specific location in your source code, an individual entity, attach important documents, save whiteboard images, or other important pieces of information that you and your team need to save. These Annotations are easily shared with your entire team and can be viewed in Understand’s Annotations Browser for easy searching. 


Not only are Annotations an easy way to save documentation, but they can also keep track of to-do lists, help prioritize work, make assigning tasks easy, keep track of areas that need refactoring, and countless other things that we probably haven’t even thought of yet. This is easily accomplished using tags to organize as you type. To enter a tag, use #tag and to enter a literal non-tagging ‘#’ in the annotation text, use ‘##’. 


Annotations can be added quickly by right clicking on the entity and selecting ‘Annotate’ 


they can be added from the top level menu 


and they can be added by hovering in the right gutter of the editor and clicking on the indicator 


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 Orphans’ top level menu that shows up when there are orphans.


Get your team involved and easily share your thoughts and concerns and speed up your development with prioritized lists at the touch of your fingertips right in context with your code.


Watch the video below for a short visual introduction to Annotations!