Rainer, >What do you mean by "minimal?" Is it enough to take, for example, the >SolBook source, edit it, and output an updated manual?
By minimal I mean: you can create and edit a DOCBOOK XML or Solbook XML document. You can validate the Solbook document against the Solbook XML 3.5 DTD. You can even convert your Solbook XML document to HTML using the DOCBOOK stylesheet bundled with the plugin. Also included are Solbook and DOCBOOK XML code completion so that when you add a tag to your document, a drop-down list of valid Solbook or DOCBOOK tags that may be selected appear. That is all you currently get. It is about 1 tiny step above vi or emacs. Because the plugin was hacked together in about the span of a weekend, it is not pretty and it is not ready for release. Hence, it currently lives in the contrib portion of Netbeans as a prototype/proof of concept and it is not advertised. Worth mentioning about the Solbook/DOCBOOK plugin for Netbeans is that this plugin was used by Geertjan to write the recently released book, "Rich Client Programming". So, it is quite possible to write your complete books, but unless you are an familiar with Netbeans, the user experience is not familiar to most writers. You can find more details about the plugin and how Geertjan used it here: http://blogs.sun.com/geertjan/entry/lifting_the_veil_how_the >I for one would prefer to have an IDE or WYSIWYG tool for this. While I >do most of my editing for any task--including HTML--in vi, I'm really >not keen on having to learn a whole new language to do work on community >docs. (I would rather spend the effort on just being productive.) Sure, >I'll still have to learn a fair bit, but this would take some of the >pain away (the amount depending on the power of the tool, of course). I have been listening to the various open source communities and nobody seems to be requesting free/open source IDE or WYSIWYG tools for Solbook. So, neither further nor formal development of the plugin has occurred. But, Rainer, if you are suggesting that you or others are not pleased with the free IDE/WYSIWYG tools for authoring, then perhaps there may be a useful nugget somewhere in that. It is up to you and others in the community to evaluate the XMLMind solution and pipe up. It is up to the OS community to determine/decide whether they are happy/content with the XMLMind solution. So, I will need to hear from others shadowing this thread as well. :) >Does it? I think there is a lot missing (like graphics and chart >editors). The tool chain I use for generating PDF's from the source has >some significant issues, which I have not had the time or energy to >chase down. I'm still hoping someone can point me in the right direction >to fix some of this. None of these are addressed by this thread, >however, so they are peripheral items. But I think the tools are far >from "specified." Have you or others addressed these missing features or tools gaps openly here in OS and kept a listing of them? I can't recall seeing any requests like this and I am unable to find a similar list in the documentation tools page for OS. There may be many others like you out there that have similar requests. Perhaps a new discussion thread that captures these feature gaps, requests, enhancements, etc. might help you and everyone else identify similar needs across the community. I can then take that back to the powers that be and possibly justify resource investments that may ultimately improve, simplify, or enhance your content contributions. As I stated before, there needs to be more than one person, i.e. you, speaking up if you or the community really want/need these supporting tools. hope that helps This message posted from opensolaris.org
