Hi,
"Germano Rizzo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Hi, :)
> and thank you lenz. I tried to follow your advice, but it's not what I
> meant, I'm afraid...
> I think sgml is a markup language just like html.
SGML stands for Standard Generalized Markup Language. It's an ISO standard
language that is used to create structured documents.
HTML is a 'subset' of SGML, and is not used for the creation of structured
content, but for web-based content. It's not an ISO standard, either.
> Well, I search for the
> equivalent for sgml of what frontpage (for example) and netscape are for
> html: a WYSIWYG editor or, at least, a layout/graphical reader... It sounds
> strange to me that they don't exist...
That's not as strange as you might think. In contrast to HTML, SGML codes tell
you nothing about the _appearance_ of a piece of text. They only tell you the
structure of the text: that it is, for example, 'Body' text or 'Heading1' text.
An SGML document, consisting of marked-up ASCII, comes with another document
called a Document Type Definition (DTD), which acts as a kind of template.
The DTD contains the rules that say, for example, that a 'Heading2' can never be
followed by a 'Heading1'. This makes it easy to have many authors work on a
large documentation set: everybody uses the same DTD. When a person has finished
work on a document, he/she validates it using an SGML parser. The parser acts
like a kind of debugger: it tells you were the structure is invalid and needs
to be changed.
So actually all the time the author is working on an SGML-based documents, the
formatting codes are visible, so the author knows in what section of the text
he is working. The final layout is only created prior to publishing. The benefit
of this is, that by using different style sheets, an SGML document can be very
easily formatted according to the output medium you need: screen, paper, web,
CD ROM. It's a question of mapping the mark-up codes to a different format.
This is probably one of the reasons why there are so few WYSIWYG editors: you
want text to be optimized for both screen, paper, web etcetera (think of using
the same text both in single- and three-column layout, with and without
underlined hyperlink text).
> Emacs, as far as I can see, does only
> a tag checking, but _still_ shows the tag in the window. Or maybe I'm wrong,
> and simply I haven't (yet) found the appropriate function :)...
There are very few (professional) WYSIWYG editors for SGML, and I don't even
know if there are any for Linux. For WIN/Solaris/Mac there is 'FrameMaker+SGML'.
A very nice package, but probably too expensive to buy as a one-off :(
There's also Adept, but I don't know anything about that.
You could go to the International SGML User's Group with your question, maybe
they can help you further ('cause I can't): http://www.isgmlug.org/,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
There is also an excellent book called 'SGMl Buyer's Guide'. By Prentice Hall
(http://www.phptr.com/. ISBN: 0-13-681511-1.
Kind regards,
Martijn
= Martijn van den Burg
= Tech writer, archiver, Linux user
= Publications Department, ASML
<snip>
> >
> >Hi,
> >
> >On Fri, 12 Mar 1999, Germano Rizzo wrote:
> >
> >> I've begun to collaborate to translate some Linux docs into italian
> >> (KDE for now). The problem is that I have to manage SGML files. I use
> >> a text editor now, in particular kedit (but I guess anyone would
> >> suit), and I try to keep the tag scheme intact. But I can't be sure I
> >> do right, 'cause I don't know how to read sgml files... Is there any
> >> program who lets one edit SGML files directly? Or just view them, just
> >> to be sure I keep the original layout intact?
> >
> >AFAIK, Emacs has a special SGML-Mode. In addition to that, package
> >"sgmltool" contains a tool called "sgmlcheck", which checks the integrity
> >of your document.
> >
> >Bye,
> > LenZ
> >
> >--
> >------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Lenz Grimmer SuSE GmbH
> > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Schanzaeckerstr. 10
> > http://www.suse.de/~grimmer 90443 Nuernberg, Germany
> >
> >
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