Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:44:29 -0400 From: "Bob Johnson" <fbsdlists@gmail.com> To: "Chuck Robey" <chuckr@chuckr.org> Cc: Greg Barniskis <nalists@scls.lib.wi.us>, freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: formatting tools for Docbook Message-ID: <54db43990606151444p58169468l36a66814bc6d8425@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4491B189.3020201@chuckr.org> References: <448E5692.1070105@chuckr.org> <448EC4A6.50808@scls.lib.wi.us> <4491B189.3020201@chuckr.org>
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On 6/15/06, Chuck Robey <chuckr@chuckr.org> wrote: > Greg Barniskis wrote: > > > Chuck Robey wrote: > > > docs, because then no one else would be able to use my documents. Am I > wrong in considering the FDP generated documentation as being in that > category, not terribly uselful outside the FreeBSD project. I believe you are wrong, or I misunderstand the question. I haven't used XML DocBook, but I've used DocBook with DSSSL. I assume what you are really asking is not whether the FreeBSD extensions to the DocBook markup language are a problem (they aren't), but whether the stylesheets used by FreeBSD are compatible with those on other systems. They are (or they claim to be, as I said I haven't actually used the XML/XSL tools yet). To clarify: the real issue for me, and probably what you are really referring to, is that the output format is not defined by the DocBook markup, but by the stylesheets (or equivalent) in the tool set used to produce the output. That's both the advantage and disadvantage of Docbook (and SGML in general). If you want strict control of the output format, then you run into the problem of a standard stylesheet format so you can also distribute your stylesheets along with your marked up documents. DSSSL stylesheets are an incredible pain to modify, and I sympathize with your desire to avoid them. XSL stylesheets are becoming a widely accepted standard, so that's the way to go, and since they are pretty much a standard, the details of what tools you use to do your document rendering shouldn't matter. If you need to modify the "standard" XSL stylesheets to meet your needs, just distribute the modified stylesheets along with your marked up documents and that should allow the person at the other end to duplicate your output. The FreeBSD XML DocBook tool set claims to use XSL stylesheets, so as I said, the answer to your question should be "no, the tools are not FreeBSD specific". Is that explanation helping at all, or am I way off track? And have I said anything that is just flat wrong? You may also want to look at http://wiki.docbook.org/topic/DocBookXslStylesheets if you haven't already. - Bob
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