> > > Is DocBook anywhere in active use? > André,
I use LyX and DocBook to Get What I Mean in both professional and private life - from software documentation to club newsletters, from prose to scientific papers. I want to write in LyX, then press a button and get everything done. My lyxtox script does this. http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/ There are at least two official HOWTOs from the Linux Documentation Project that were written with this method: The PHP-Nuke Guide: http://www.karakas-online.de/EN-Book/ The GNU/Linux Command-Line Tools Summary: http://www.karakas-online.de/gnu-linux-tools-summary/ lyxtox currently needs an outdated version of LyX (1.2.0), but the results are nevertheless excellent. It works as follows: - It corrects LyX' exported SGML code, so that you can use it (otherwise you will get tons of errors). - It lets you include images, admonitions, callouts from LyX. - It lets you write and publish Mathematics: http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/lyx-mathematics.html on the Web and in print with TeX quality! - It produces a PDF with all bells and whistles: bookmarks, thumbnails, hyperrefs, cross-refs, images, embedded (Computer Modern) fonts for optimal viewing *and* printing etc. See http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/explain-optimal-pdf.html - It produces *valid HTML*. That's not to be taken for granted with the standard tools - just check a document produced by openjade with W3C's HTML validator. See http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/html-validation.html - It produces HTML code that passes the guidelines for accessibility - that's also not the case for the standard tools, see http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/accessibility.html - It creates the index automatically for you. LyX offers a very comfortable way of inserting index entries. But if you ever need to create an Index for a 500 page document like this one: http://www.karakas-online.de/EN-Book/i21330.html then even LyX' manual approach will not serve you. For such cases, the scripts offer an automatic Index generation: http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/lyx-automatic-index-generation.html And what about the Bibliography? We have BibTeX, don't we? ;-) Yes, but BibTeX won't help you with SGML. Instead, the scripts use RefDB ( http://refdb.sourceforge.net ), the only available tool to create HTML, PostScript, PDF, DVI, MIF, or RTF output from DocBook or TEI sources with fully formatted citations and bibliographies according to publisher's specifications. RefDB is integrated transparently: you build you bibliographic database, you define your bibliographic style, i.e. the style accepted by the journal you want to submit your work, then the lyxtox script http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/lyxtox will create (through RefDB) the bibliography SGML file according to that style, then it will create (on-the-fly!) the necessary extra DSSSL customization layers that will, in turn, format everything correctly: http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/lyx-bibliography-with-refdb.html If you'd rather not use RefDB, the scripts will still offer you a solution to your bibliography problem: http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/lyx-bibliography-without-refdb.html Thus, what you get is a *complete* solution to your writing needs: - GUI (LyX), don't bother about SGML. - Table of Contents, - cross-references, - Index, - Bibliography, - Mathematics everything is covered. You press the button, lyxtox does the rest - enjoy! :-) Chris -- Regards Chris Karakas http://www.karakas-online.de
