From owner-freebsd-doc Mon Mar 29 20:43:26 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from detlev.UUCP (57-sweet.camalott.com [208.239.153.57]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3FA041508A for ; Mon, 29 Mar 1999 20:43:14 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from joelh@gnu.org) Received: (from joelh@localhost) by detlev.UUCP (8.9.3/8.9.1) id WAA00545; Mon, 29 Mar 1999 22:42:49 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from joelh) To: nclayton@lehman.com Cc: Kris Kennaway , Nik Clayton , doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Handbook DocBook cutover complete References: <19990327162554.K3136@catkin.nothing-going-on.org> <19990329105741.L23968@lehman.com> From: Joel Ray Holveck Date: 29 Mar 1999 22:42:49 -0600 In-Reply-To: nclayton@lehman.com's message of "Mon, 29 Mar 1999 10:57:41 +0100" Message-ID: <86r9q7egfq.fsf@detlev.UUCP> Lines: 57 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org This has been removed from -current, since it's really more -doc material. Please leave me in the cc's, tho, I'm not subscribed. >>> Almost a year ago I started the project to switch the Handbook over >>> from LinuxDoc to DocBook. My $0.02: I've looked at both, and decided that DocBook is much cleaner. It's kind of like the difference between HPGL and PostScript. (I don't mean to compare LinuxDoc to HPGL or DocBook to PostScript; I'm just comparing the difference.) >> Can I ask what the differences and benefits are? > As follows; > * LinuxDoc is descended from the QWERTZ DTD, and was designed to serve > the needs of the Linux Documentation Project. How do these needs differ from those of the FreeBSD documentation project? > When processed, both those might be displayed in a monospaced font. > However, the DocBook version includes extra information. We don't do > it yet, but the DocBook Handbook will eventually include several > indices. One of these will be a list of each page where each filename > is mentioned, allowing you to quickly see all the places where (for > example) ppp.conf is referred to. It also means that if, later on, we decide that filenames look cleaner in italics instead of monospace (for instance), we can do so. > * DocBook is extensible. It's relatively easy to add your own elements, > for things that are missing from DocBook. I've done this for the > Handbook, adding things like "" and "". This is > harder to with LinuxDoc. What are you using these tags for? > * Tools to convert DocBook to other formats are not quite as advanced > as the LinuxDoc tools, but are getting their rapidly. I would be interested in hearing your comments on DocBook tools, what you find indispensable (both in the drafing process and for finals), etc. > As it currently stands in the repository, the DocBook Handbook can be > converted to HTML, Postscript, plain text, and Microsoft RTF. A bug > that I'll fix this week is currently preventing PDF generation. The GNU project is writing a converter to TeXinfo. Cheers, joelh -- Joel Ray Holveck - joelh@gnu.org Fourth law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation - core dumped To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message