I have been writing about sgml tools. I am hoping to get
your feedback on what I have written about LyX. I use it
regularly, but not for sgml, so I may well have over looked
some important points. I may even have some inappropriate
reasons not to use (out of my own ignorance). In particular
I would like to know how to include more tags -- especially
content tags, such as <application>, or <email>, or multiple
authors, editors, <screen>, <userinput>, etc.
I appreciate any help in creating an accurate and helpful
document.
Thank you in advance.
Bill Tihen
The LyX part of document follows:
_________________________________________________________________
Graphical SGML Document Preparation
Bill Tihen
We present some options here and describe the
installation and use.
However, The authors do not currently recommend using a
gui-based
method of document preparation, because we feel that the
disadavantages currently outweight the advantages.
Currently, LyX is
the only GUI Linux document processor we are aware of.
_________________________________________________________________
LyX
LyX Description
LyX allows the user to view the document structure as one
writes the
document in a WYSIWYG format. LyX 1.04 and beyond are
SGML capable if
the proper SGMLtools is installed. LyX will work with
several other
types of documents as well.
Advantages
* The author can easily create complicated document
structures.
Including: tables, lists, and graphics.
* The author does not need to know the details of sgml
tags. Instead
the author can focus on the document's content and
structure.
Disadvantages
* The gui environment have a very limited range of
content-based
SGML tags. Most of the tags available are SGML tags.
Unfortunately, content tags are one of the majore
advantages of
using SGML. Without content tags it is impossible to
a library of
documents which can be searched in a meaningful way.
* An SGML author may not work directly with the SGML
files. The file
is not even stored in an SGML format. The author must
first export
the document to an SGML format.
* An SGML author may not import SGML files. Therefore,
one cannot
easily cooperate on an SGML project with other
people.
_________________________________________________________________
Obtaining LyX
You can download LyX from http://www.lyx.org RPMS are
avaliable at:
ftp://ftp.sylvan.com/pub/lyx/ To use DocBook you will
also need the
following version of sgmltools -- I am sure at some point
other
versions will be okay, but for now please use this
version:
ftp://ftp.sylvan.com/pub/lyx/sgml/2.x/sgmltools/sgmltools-CVS19990807-
2.i386.rpm
Note: This version of SGMLtools
(sgmltools-CVS19990807-2) has a
missing version file in the dssl. This is not a serious
problem,
but it generates an annoying error message. I suggest
going to
http://nwalsh.com//docbook/dsssl/index.html and getting
the most
recent dssl -- which will also fix this little error.
On my system
this stylesheet is installed at
/usr/share/sgml/stylesheets. Copy
the file you downloaded to the proper location and
unzip it. If you
want to keep a copy of your old set just rename the
original
docbook folder before unzipping the file. Now your
error will go
away and you will have the most recent dssl.
LyX requires xforms which can be found at
http://bragg.phys.uwm.edu:80/xforms. I don't know of an
rpm version of
the xforms library, so I have only been able to install
LyX, by first
installing both the xforms and LyX sources and then
compiling them.
After the initial installation LyX installation from
sources you
should be able to use LyX rpms.
_________________________________________________________________
Configure LyX to use DocBook
Install both LyX and the appropriate version of
SGMLtools.
Now you must reconfigure LyX by going to the menu bar and
selecting
Options->Reconfigure (ALT-o SPACE r). You should then get
the
following dialog box telling you to restart LyX. It is
important to do
this right away!
_________________________________________________________________
Using LyX
Using LyX is quite easy, however there are a few steps
you must follow
when creating a new DocBook article.
* Open a new document and do the following: File->New
(ALT-n) Now
check to see if the SGMLtools layout was found.
Layout->Document... (ALT-f d) Now the Document Layout
dialog box
should open up. Class Towards the bottom of the list
you should
see: SGML (DocBook article). Select this item. Then
click on
either Apply or OK. Now a confirmation dialog box
should appear.
Click on Yes.
* As you type the document select the structures you
want using the
menu-bar and the menu-items. It should be clear to
most people how
to do this once the program is running.
* Now the SGML document needs to be exported by going
to the menu
bar and choosing: File->Export->DocBook
_________________________________________________________________
--
Bill Tihen, Director of Technology
The American School in Switzerland
Website: <http://www.tasis.ch/>
email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
