Bug 30562

Agreed.

I'm currently using the AutoCommenter code for the Auto Comment tool -
it has the same limitation, right? (Or perhaps I'm not using it right).  

Is there an easy way to tell if a MemberElement is overriding
something in super? Do I have to iterate up the Class hierarchy and do
method lookups in each? Is there any code you know if in NetBeans
which does the right thing here (for example, does the popup
completion javadoc window look up the parent javadoc?) that I can
leverage/copy?

Duh, I guess checking with the immediate superclass should be enough.

Immediate superclass (don't forget interfaces!) may not suffice:

public interface A {
    /** some doc */
    void x();
    /** more doc */
    void y();
}
public abstract class B implements A {
    // inherits doc from A
    public final void x() {}
}
public class C extends B {
    // inherits doc from A
    public final void y() {}
}

Sorry, forgot to give references. Issue #25429 for popup Javadoc;
issue #24406 for Auto Comment; issue #7115 for interface
synchronization. You can tell I have a pet peeve here! :-)

Fixed. It only deals with methods. A class missing a javadoc will be
listed as needing a javadoc even if its parent class has a javadoc;
this seems right to me (if a class has the same description as its
parent, why is it a different class? Something must differentiate it,
and that ought to be documented in the class javadoc.)

Fix available in tasklist.javadoc/1 0.8.26.

Right, of course classes and constructors and fields and static
methods cannot inherit Javadoc comments - only instance methods whose
signature matches that of the super signature (possibly with protected
-> public).

org.netbeans.modules.tasklist.javadoc/1 [1.1 200304230100]

Does not appear to be fixed to me.

0. Suggestions view open.

1. Create package test in sampledir.

2. Create interface Foo in it:

package test;
/** X */
public interface Foo {
    /** does x */
    void x();
}

(Save it.) No Javadoc warnings here. (Ignore any copyright warning.)

3. Create empty class FooImpl, make it impl Foo:

package test;
/** Y */
public class FooImpl implements Foo {
    public void x() {}
}

(Save it.) Suggestions window incorrectly says:

"x: Javadoc comment is missing."

Code was only looking for class name, not FQN, when using
ClassElement.forName.

Also I noticed that adding "extends Object" affected whether a docless
toString() would be reported. Fixed - everything now assumed to
implicitly extend Object.

Checking in tasklist/javadoc/manifest.mf;
/cvs/tasklist/javadoc/manifest.mf,v  <--  manifest.mf
new revision: 1.18; previous revision: 1.17
done
Checking in tasklist/javadoc/module-updates.txt;
/cvs/tasklist/javadoc/module-updates.txt,v  <--  module-updates.txt
new revision: 1.6; previous revision: 1.5
done
Checking in
tasklist/javadoc/src/org/netbeans/modules/tasklist/javadoc/DocSuggester.java;
/cvs/tasklist/javadoc/src/org/netbeans/modules/tasklist/javadoc/DocSuggester.java,v
 <--  DocSuggester.java
new revision: 1.14; previous revision: 1.13
done

BTW if you extend/implement a class for which you have only bytecode,
and no mounted source, it will complain although the original method
may have in fact had Javadoc. You thus need to mount sources, incl.
e.g. the JRE.

I've merged your fix to the dev35 branch, the tasklist-3.5 compatible
branch which is feature compatible with the tasklist 4.0 version (trunk).