On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 05:32:50PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> I just did a quick search for "Eclipse docbook tool" and this turned up:
>
> http://vex.sourceforge.net/
>
> Eclipse is a Java-based IDE managed by IBM; I've used it on Windows
> environment, but it "should" run on X as well. Personally, I like the
> premise of platform independent work environments such as Eclipse for this
> very type of multi-developer project.
>
> Anyway I have not used Vex personally, and I'm not sure how
> docbook-specific its features are (if any), but there are quite a few XML
> editors to select from for Eclipse as well.
I found a couple of hours last night to do a Google search for
DocBook authoring tools. There seems to be quite a variety to choose from,
though nothing as polished as conventional desktop publishing software. The
range covers everything from simple text editors where you do all your
tagging by hand, up to at least one commercial WYSIWYG application.
So, if the project decides to adopt DocBook as its preferred
multi-output documentation format, everybody should find it easy to choose
an editor to suit their own work style.
Also, the Linux Documentation Project has been using DocBook XML for
quite a while, and has posted an assortment of HOWTOs, author's guides, and
tools. For instance, see
http://www.freelinuxcdrom.com/LDP/LDP/LDP-Author-Guide/html/tools-edit.html
With the cautionary note that I haven't yet tried writing DocBook
with any of these tools, and therefore can't speak with any auhority, here's
what I found.
Plain text editors... the usual suspects. vi, pico, nano, joe,
jed, ted, kate, emacs, whatever you like. Personally, I think I'd look for
one with at least a macro feature, to save time popping those tags into the
text. Obviously, you could use a word processor in plain text mode, too.
Comments indicated that native-XML word processors such as
OpenOffice don't really support DocBook well, as yet.
Web browsers... LDP has gone ahead and created a set of Wiki
formatting symbols for the most-used tags, and they run a Wiki server on
their web site. They encourage authors to use it to input content. The
initial impression I get is that the lead editors still have to set up the
less-used tags to create the framework for the document, but that's a small
task compared to writing the content, which the remote authors are able to
do by themselves through the Wiki system.
Earlier discussion on this list indicated a strong interest in
writing via Wiki. If the project were to use LDP's Wiki markup symbols and
toolchain on its own web site, authors could choose the Wiki method at will.
Next up in sophistication is probably the emacs DocBook mode. emacs
also has the psgml mode, which handles DocBook XML, and appears to be
popular among LDP authors.
Several references to Conglomerate showed up,
http://www.conglomerate.org. It "aims to be an XML editor that everyone can
use. In particular, our primary goal is to create the ultimate editor for
DocBook and similar formats" The impression I got is that not much
development work is currently going on with it, though.
Vex sounds similar.
There were a couple of mentions of working with DocBook in LyX. It
wasn't clear just how easy that is.
LDP lists a couple of commercial validating XML editors, Morphon and
XXE. Here's another list of available XML authoring tools:
http://wiki.docbook.org/topic/DocBookAuthoringTools
And at the high end there's a commercial cross-platform XML editor,
http://www.syntext.com/products/serna/index.htm. This one claims to render
on the fly against a DTD and style sheet. It specifically mentions DocBook
as a supported schema. The full-featured version is on the pricey side, but
there's a less expensive personal/home version. They offer a free trial,
and I may give it an evaluation.
The discussion the other day sounded as though a consensus was
emerging that the preferred authoring format should be either DocBook or
LaTex.
My biases...
I don't know either DocBook or LaTex. If I have to learn one or the
other, I'd rather learn DocBook. It looks to have more of a future, and it
appears to be more versatile just because it's built from the ground up to
tag for structure rather than layout.
Also, LDP has gone that way, and there's an argument for doing what
LDP does just because LDP is doing it. They have massive experience at
multiple-author documentation, and could save us from having to re-invent
some wheels. Their solution to importing Wiki directly into DocBook is an
example.
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