On 26 March 2012 11:37, Chris Jones <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 07:19:29PM EDT, Lex Trotman wrote: > > [..] > >> Docbook, and therefore asciidoc is a *content* markup, not a >> presentation markup. So asciidoc doesn't know anything about fonts or >> other presentation information. This is what allows the same content >> to be used to generate lots of differing output formats. Each output >> processor can perform its own formatting, but each has also chosen its >> own method of customisation. So Asciidoc would have to have special >> customisations for each toolchain if it was to specify presentation >> and that is beyond its scope. > > [..] > > I'm sorry but although I understand (and like everybody else approve of) > the concept of separation between structure and presentation... where > _users_ of asciidoc are concerned, this answer is not satisfactory. >
Hi Chris, I understand the issue, and I am involved (when I have time) in an effort to try to use the Libreoffice toolset to allow interactive style definition. The answer may not be satisfactory, but it is the answer. Asciidoc is a small project and cannot expand its scope to include re-writing documentation of existing toolchains. Asciidoc does not support any specific toolchain, but provides assistance for running the free toolchains dblatex and fop in the a2x script. > When I'm writing a document in English comprising quotes from say > Russian and ancient Greek, I need to know how I can switch to a quality > Russian font and then back to my standard English font, and then switch > again to a nice Greek font. > > I don't want as Gour just did to have to scour the latex, docbook, > xetex, dblatex, etc. etc. for a solution. Asciidoc provides references to the appropriate sections of the dblatex toolchain documentation and to the sagehill xsl book that covers xslt and fop in FAQ #3. The fact that a particular toolchain uses latex, xsl:fo or other methods to configure itself is the toolchains decision, and your decision when you choose the toolchain. > > These use cases should be documented in the asciidoc manual and basic > working examples provided for asciidoc to be credible. The set of use-cases for Asciidoc is essentially unlimited, there is no way that all of them could be covered and not really any good method of choosing a "correct" priority for which ones to spend time on. Especially as any such time would detract from development of Asciidoc itself. For example I don't give a damn about non-English languages, but I want better formatting of source code documentation (at the moment). What is important depends on the user. But if you wish to provide such documentation of how you use it, it would be gratefully received and I am sure a "How people use toolchains" or similar section could be created on the website for other peoples contributions to be added. Noting that someone has to volunteer to check these for correctness, grammar and quality, hint hint. Cheers Lex -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "asciidoc" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/asciidoc?hl=en.
