DocBook roadmap?

DocBook roadmap?

[Peter Toft]

Friends

I have now eight books in SGML/DocBook 3.1 running on
Linux boxes. Should I consider to swap the source to
XML at some point? What is the status on the XML
DocBook resources?? Which tools are available for
handling DocBook in XML? Emacs is my friend so far :))

My problem is that I have found very few point about
the roadmap for DocBook.

best

-- 
Peter Toft, Ph.D. [pto@sslug.dk] http://www.sslug.dk/~pto

Linux!, because reboots are only for *kernel* upgrades!
                                ---  Sid Young

Re: DocBook roadmap?

[Ronald Hayden]

> From: Peter Toft <pto@sslug.dk>
> Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 23:13:31 +0200 (CEST)
> Subject: DocBook roadmap?
> 
> I have now eight books in SGML/DocBook 3.1 running on
> Linux boxes. Should I consider to swap the source to
> XML at some point? What is the status on the XML
> DocBook resources??

I'm putting together the Darwin Documentation Project, and have been playing
with various DocBook XML solutions for a few months.  The current status, in
my experience so far, is that there are mature processing solutions as long
as you can use a Java-based solution.  This doesn't mean a Java application,
but Java commands that you call from the command-line.

The tools being used by the Darwin Doc Project are outlined here:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/documentation/howto/html/Darwin_Doc
_HOWTO.html#processing-xml

There are a number of C- and Perl-based XSLT processing solutions in the
works, but none of them that I've tried has successfully handled DocBook.
This will certainly change in the next 6-9 months, but that's where it is
now near as I can tell.

On the editing side, there isn't anything really better than just using
Emacs if you can stick with that.  Certainly nothing mature (that I've seen)
that a user not comfortable with tags is going to find very usable.  That
too will hopefully change in the next year.

Of course I'm interested in hearing if other's experience varies.

 -- Ron Hayden

Re: DocBook roadmap?

[Peter Toft]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Ronald Hayden wrote:

> > From: Peter Toft <pto@sslug.dk>
> > Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 23:13:31 +0200 (CEST)
> > Subject: DocBook roadmap?
> >
> > I have now eight books in SGML/DocBook 3.1 running on
> > Linux boxes. Should I consider to swap the source to
> > XML at some point? What is the status on the XML
> > DocBook resources??
>
> I'm putting together the Darwin Documentation Project, and have been playing
> with various DocBook XML solutions for a few months.  The current status, in
> my experience so far, is that there are mature processing solutions as long
> as you can use a Java-based solution.  This doesn't mean a Java application,
> but Java commands that you call from the command-line.

Any clues about the performance compared to jade which
I use to do SGML->HTML/PS/PDF

I have rather big documents :)

-- 
Peter Toft, Ph.D. [pto@sslug.dk] http://www.sslug.dk/~pto

"What have you contributed to Linux today?"
           -- Hanne Munkholm, SSLUG penguin

Re: DocBook roadmap?

[Ronald Hayden]

No -- I'm sure it's slower, though whether the amount matters would depend
on how important speed is to you.

For my case, where we intend to process HOWTO documents with each build, the
speed isn't very important given that at most we'd be dealing with a few
dozen small documents.

 -- Ron


> From: Peter Toft <pto@sslug.dk>
> Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 23:55:44 +0200 (CEST)
> To: Ronald Hayden <rhayden@apple.com>
> Cc: docbook-tools-discuss@sources.redhat.com
> Subject: Re: DocBook roadmap?
> 
> On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Ronald Hayden wrote:
> 
>>> From: Peter Toft <pto@sslug.dk>
>>> Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 23:13:31 +0200 (CEST)
>>> Subject: DocBook roadmap?
>>> 
>>> I have now eight books in SGML/DocBook 3.1 running on
>>> Linux boxes. Should I consider to swap the source to
>>> XML at some point? What is the status on the XML
>>> DocBook resources??
>> 
>> I'm putting together the Darwin Documentation Project, and have been playing
>> with various DocBook XML solutions for a few months.  The current status, in
>> my experience so far, is that there are mature processing solutions as long
>> as you can use a Java-based solution.  This doesn't mean a Java application,
>> but Java commands that you call from the command-line.
> 
> Any clues about the performance compared to jade which
> I use to do SGML->HTML/PS/PDF
> 
> I have rather big documents :)
> 
> -- 
> Peter Toft, Ph.D. [pto@sslug.dk] http://www.sslug.dk/~pto
> 
> "What have you contributed to Linux today?"
> -- Hanne Munkholm, SSLUG penguin
> 
> 
> 

Re: DocBook roadmap?

[Gregory Leblanc]

On 12 Apr 2001 23:55:44 +0200, Peter Toft wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Ronald Hayden wrote:
> 
> > > From: Peter Toft <pto@sslug.dk>
> > > Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 23:13:31 +0200 (CEST)
> > > Subject: DocBook roadmap?
> > >
> > > I have now eight books in SGML/DocBook 3.1 running on
> > > Linux boxes. Should I consider to swap the source to
> > > XML at some point? What is the status on the XML
> > > DocBook resources??
> >
> > I'm putting together the Darwin Documentation Project, and have been playing
> > with various DocBook XML solutions for a few months.  The current status, in
> > my experience so far, is that there are mature processing solutions as long
> > as you can use a Java-based solution.  This doesn't mean a Java application,
> > but Java commands that you call from the command-line.
> 
> Any clues about the performance compared to jade which
> I use to do SGML->HTML/PS/PDF

I haven't tried this myself (yet), but libxslt is very fast, and should
be stable and mostly bug-free at this point.  www.xmlsoft.org/XSLT I
think.  I know that KDE is planning to use this for their next release,
as will GNOME, for their next major release.
    Greg

Re: DocBook roadmap?

[Ronald Hayden]

> From: Gregory Leblanc <gleblanc@cu-portland.edu>
> Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 16:09:40 -0700
> To: docbook-tools-discuss@sources.redhat.com
> Subject: Re: DocBook roadmap?
> 
> I haven't tried this myself (yet), but libxslt is very fast, and should
> be stable and mostly bug-free at this point.  www.xmlsoft.org/XSLT I
> think.  I know that KDE is planning to use this for their next release,
> as will GNOME, for their next major release.

Does libxslt definitely handle DocBook?

I tried it a few weeks ago with no luck.

 -- Ron

Re: DocBook roadmap?

[Gregory Leblanc]

On 12 Apr 2001 16:28:59 -0700, Ronald Hayden wrote:
> > From: Gregory Leblanc <gleblanc@cu-portland.edu>
> > Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 16:09:40 -0700
> > To: docbook-tools-discuss@sources.redhat.com
> > Subject: Re: DocBook roadmap?
> > 
> > I haven't tried this myself (yet), but libxslt is very fast, and should
> > be stable and mostly bug-free at this point.  www.xmlsoft.org/XSLT I
> > think.  I know that KDE is planning to use this for their next release,
> > as will GNOME, for their next major release.
> 
> Does libxslt definitely handle DocBook?
> 
> I tried it a few weeks ago with no luck.

The DocBook XSL stylesheets are part of the regression tests for
libxslt, so yes, it definately works.  DV did a demo of it for me
recently, and it's pretty damn fast, but rather a memory hog. 
    Greg

Re: DocBook roadmap?

[Norman Walsh]

/ Peter Toft <pto@sslug.dk> was heard to say:
| XML at some point? What is the status on the XML
| DocBook resources?? Which tools are available for
| handling DocBook in XML? Emacs is my friend so far :))

All of the tools that work with DocBook SGML will also work with
DocBook XML.  XML *is* SGML.

| My problem is that I have found very few point about
| the roadmap for DocBook.

What would you like such a roadmap to tell you? Please consider submitting
your answer as a documentation request at sourceforge.net/projects/docbook :-)

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | Simplicity is always a virtue.--Edward
http://nwalsh.com/            | Abbey