Fwd: Re: [Opensource] Proposal: Docbook Building

[D Lloyd]

Please follow the discussion.  I was referring to the
following two messages:

http://www.jcorporate.com/eforum/Browse.do?state=displayMessage&MessageId=3927

http://www.jcorporate.com/eforum/Browse.do?state=displayMessage&MessageId=3923

and others these messages were in reference.

I don't have anything backwards. I know the
limitations of HTML / XHTML, which are synonomous from
a content point of view - useless.  The larger picture
is how to make things easier for documentation.  I
have done searches for opensource / freely available
docbook software.  If you have found one, I'm sure the
group would like to know.

Which brings me to Peter Pilgrim's point earlier -- 
Educating on the finer points of DocBook syntax is one
thing and ease of use (WYSIWYG) while writing is
another.  I agree with the point on DocBook being easy
- so is (X)HTML.  Some, maybe potential, documentation
writers would rather use a WYSIWYG just like many of
us don't use a text editor for basic page authoring.

- David

--- David Herron <davidh at 7gen.com> wrote:
> From: David Herron <davidh at 7gen.com>
> To: opensource at jcorporate.com
> Subject: Re: [Opensource] Proposal: Docbook Building
> Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 20:16:14 -0400 (EDT)
> 
> 
> 
> > > I think the idea of allowing documents to be
> written
> > > in a standard set of html that is then
> transformed
> > > into the docbook xml via XSLT would be a boom
> for some
> > > who could then easily use a HTML composer /
> previewer
> > > and only work with the docbook when they are
> finished
> > > to see what it will *really* look like.  We
> could add
> > > some ant targets and / or scripts to facilitate
> the
> > > document writers.  I would be willing to this
> also.
> 
> 
> I think whoever wrote this has it backwards.
> 
> HTML is not as regularized a language as XML.  You
> can't write an XSLT
> processor to read HTML and spit anything out,
> because XML parsers throw up
> on HTML's inconsistencies.  Now, if you could
> gaurantee it was written as
> XHTML instead of HTML then you could write an XSLT
> processor to do as you
> said, because XHTML uses enough XML syntax to pass
> through an XML parser.
> 
> But that just leaves you with the fact that HTML
> (with or without the X)
> is not a terribly useful format for anything other
> than prettyfying some
> text for display on the screen.  HTML tags don't
> convey any meaning other
> than layout.  I don't know DocBook, but since it's
> XML it must be having
> tags with meaning beyond layout.
> 
> I'm sure that somewhere in the open source arena
> someone has written a
> fancified whizzywhig DocBook editor.  The open
> source folk have been using
> DocBook for a long long long time, and not all of
> them are so beholden to
> Emacs or Vi that someone with a GUI bent musta done
> a better DocBook
> editor.  Failing that, using Swings editor kit
> component(s) it would be
> feasible to write a DocBook editor (not that I'm
> volunteering).
> 
> - David
> 
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