Thanks, this is helpful. I also went to the OASIS list archives and tried to get a feel for 5.0 activity. I'm not overly concerned about the officialness of 5.0, since it's certainly a de facto standard (and I've watched other standards projects and know this process is hard). I'm a little concerned that overall the movement toward de jure status of 5.0 is very slow, with a minimum of people involved in the heavy lifting (not that this isn't usually the case in most projects) -- more in the sense of what it might or might not say about Docbook's health as a living standard, de facto or otherwise. But it certainly seems true that most of the tools appear to support it, and it has a widely popular base.
Karen G. Schneider, Equinox Software On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 2:35 AM, Camille Bégnis <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, > > indeed the picture is a bit blurry at the moment while docbook is migrating > from 4.x to 5.0. Some points to try to answer your questions: > > - 4.x docbook will not evolve anymore, the current standard is now 5.0 > - 5.0 is not officially an OASIS standard yet, because of administrative > reasons only > - many people have been using exclusively 5.0 for more than a year without > issues. > - there are not really 5.0 stylesheets at the moment. Some work is being > done on XSLT2 stylesheets, but this is not production ready I believe. So > 4.x stylesheets have been adapted to be capable of handling 5.0 documents > - 5.0 documents are not exactly processed back to 4.x: it is just that > there is a first step that makes some adjustments to the document so it is > correctly processed by the stylesheet. However this is transparent to the > user. The user just apply the stylesheet once. > - there is the namespace aware stylesheet version (-ns) that is specific to > 5.0 but basically based on the standard stylesheet.tax > > So in short: just apply current -ns stylesheet with xsltproc on your > document. > > Concerning xincludes, the syntax is the same as in DB 4.x, just remember to > use the namespace. > > All this is my vision of the issue, I will let experts precise or correct > all if necessary > > Camille. > > > Karen Schneider wrote: > >> Hi, I'm reposting a message from Betty, an intern who is subscribed to >> this list but having difficulty posting.. Note that I think I have partially >> found the answer from the following document, >> http://www.docbook.org/docs/howto/ , which includes links to >> http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl-ns/current/ , but I am still >> seeking general clarification about why 4.0 seems to be the norm (I mean, to >> a newcomer it seems odd that I'd produce 5.0 documents and then process them >> back to 4.0?!)... because of a large installed base, or something else? >> >> Karen G. Schneider >> >> ------------------------- >> >> From: "Betty Ing" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> >> To: [email protected] <mailto: >> [email protected]> >> Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:58:14 -0500 >> Subject: DocBook 5 Stylesheets >> Hello, >> >> I have been looking at the "Using XInclude" example in Ch. 23 - Modular >> DocBook - of DocBook XSL. >> >> http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/ModularDoc.html#UsingXinclude >> >> I would like to create the chapter file and book file using DocBook 5 >> and DocBook 5 stylesheets. I also plan to use xsltproc. What changes do >> I need to make in the xml files, and where can I locate DocBook 5 >> stylesheets? >> >> Thanks in advance. >> >> Betty >> >> >> >> >> -- >> -- >> | Karen G. Schneider >> | Community Librarian >> | Equinox Software Inc. "The Evergreen Experts" >> | Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712 >> | [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> | Web: http://www.esilibrary.com >> | Be a part of the Evergreen International Conference, May 20-22, 2009! >> | http://www.solinet.net/evergreen >> > -- -- | Karen G. Schneider | Community Librarian | Equinox Software Inc. "The Evergreen Experts" | Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712 | [email protected] | Web: http://www.esilibrary.com | Be a part of the Evergreen International Conference, May 20-22, 2009! | http://www.solinet.net/evergreen
