Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 23:06:15 -0400 From: Dutch Collins <dutch@charm.net> To: Nik Clayton <nik@nothing-going-on.demon.co.uk> Cc: bsd-doc <freebsd-doc@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Documents - the plain paper look - always? Message-ID: <37895BA7.3D21CB1D@charm.net> References: <3788A8FE.2A8DBAB2@charm.net> <19990711213444.B61012@catkin.nothing-going-on.org>
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Nik Clayton wrote: > > Hi, > > On Sun, Jul 11, 1999 at 10:23:58AM -0400, Dutch Collins wrote: > > I have stuffed DocBook in the 'ol brain and have a question(s). > > > > 1) What are the limits to page beautification, shading and color. > > Depends. DocBook itself says very little about how the information in > the document should be formatted. Currently, we use a stylesheets written > in a (scheme-like) language called DSSSL to do that, and a processor > (called Jade) which reads in the DocBook and the stylesheet, and generates > the formatted output. > > > 2) I looked over the CD-ROM (walcrk) and did not find the BSD version > > of DocBook. Do I have to ftp the DocBook-FreeBSD version from > > FreeBSD.org? > > http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/doc/share/sgml/freebsd.dtd > > You'll also need the CATALOG file and freebsd.dsl file in that directory > as well. > > The organisation is tied quite heavily to the FDP. If you're planning > on using these with your own documents, but aren't up to speed with > SGML and DSSSL yet, I recommend using CVSup to download doc/en/* and > doc/share/*, and seeing how the Makefiles use the various programs to > generate the formatted output from doc/en/handbook/ and > doc/en/tutorials/docproj-primer/. > > > 3) Almost all web sites I visited that had something to do with > > documentation had the same look, plain paper. Is this the preferred > > look for sites or just a look generated by DocBook? > > It's a look generated by the 'default' DSSSL stylesheets, written by > Norm Walsh. They're not 'default' in the sense that they ship with > DocBook, but they are the most complete set in existence, and since the > output is (for most people) 'good enough', no one bothers to customise > the output. > > It can be customised, either by tweaking variables in the stylesheets, or > by rewriting the stylesheets functions to do things differently. The > previously mentioned freebsd.dsl file does this in some cases. > > I'm no style maven, so if you've got suggestions for how the look and feel > of the formatted documentation could be improved then I'm all ears. > > > a) New Topic: WP8 does have DocBook and the DOD SGML on the CD. I > > think I have enough windoze\disk\space to give it a try. What > > kind of HTML will fall out? Got me. As soon as I generate > > something useful I will post the URL. It will be notes or maybe > > a man page. ???Maybe something from my C books from 198x years.??? > > Absolutely no idea I'm afraid. I haven't got WP8 installed. But I'm > interested in your results. > > N > -- Well, I have a lot to do, don't I. Downloaded Jade, bookmarked a few SGML/DSSL sites, and took the day off. I did tinker with style sheets a while back and threw a page up - it is sad but still there, http://charm.net/~treecat/ , till I blank it. WP8: I am working on it. No useful notes so far, however, I think something useful will come out of the exercise. Anyway, I am using win95 right now because my ISP does not 'do' remote X-term, so, until I get the new drive I will FTP every thing to my BSDI (csh) acnt. so I can get something done. FreeBSD back up (gigabytes!) by next Friday??? Back to WP8. The nature of the wordprocessor is to try to protect the user from themselves. This results in a odd (to me) series of edit windows instead if just text editing like in emacs or pico (vi == ick). The good news is, WP8 allows text input if one wants to. It also validates every line so the user cannot input bad codes by mistake. The user can keep any bad SGML but it will not validate. It also enforces the rules. I guess what I mean is, <SECTn><PARA><BOOK></BOOK></PARA></SECTn>, will be flagged as an error in the code tree that is displayed to the left of the text source. The text source is displayed as a normal WP style window. Well, that was not as clear as I wanted, but I do not know enough right now to really use the Code in a meaningful way. Later descriptions should be better. Maybe a step-by-step because it is so different. If I am lucky I can run the output through sgml to html and have a new page. Will see. Talk later - d To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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