Adequate documentation of an object-oriented framework is the prerequisite to its success as a reusable component. The overall
design of a framework and its intended method of reuse are not obvious from the source code and thus have to be addressed
in the documentation. Most importantly, the documentation of a framework has to be structured in such a way that it guarantees
the adequate support of three major audiences: users selecting a framework, users learning to develop typical applications
based on the selected framework, and users intending to modify its architecture.
This paper presents a model for structuring the documentation of an objectoriented framework. The model integrates existing
approaches such as patterns, hypertext, program-understanding tools, and formal approaches into a single structure that is
geared towards supporting the three audiences. The model will be illustrated using HotDraw, a Smalltalk framework for drawing
editors, as an example. We also give a preliminary evaluation of the model.