Chris Ochs wrote: > I'm fairly new to docbook, most of my time so far has been spent learning > the xsl stylesheets and how to customize them. > > In a nutshell, what do I need to do to be able to use the docbook html forms > dtd in the standard addition of xxe? Is this possible? >
Yes, this is possible with the Standard Edition of XMLmind XML Editor. It would take half an hour for an XXE guru to create a configuration allowing you to author documents conforming to DocBook+HTML Forms Module. The problem is that it takes countless hours of hard work (and a lot of head banging against the walls) to become an XXE guru. However, I have created such configuration for you in the hope that this will give you a quick start. Download your favorite archive format from: --- http://www.pixware.fr/_download/docbook_html_forms/docbook_html_forms.tar.gz 2389bytes, Fri Nov 05 12:43:54 PM CET 2004 http://www.pixware.fr/_download/docbook_html_forms/docbook_html_forms.zip 4749bytes, Fri Nov 05 12:44:06 PM CET 2004 --- [1] Unzip the archive in <XXE_user_preferences_directory>/config/ - <XXE_user_preferences_directory>/config/ is ~/.xxe2/config on Linux and Mac. - <XXE_user_preferences_directory>/config/ is C:\Documents and Settings\xxe2\config\ on Windows. [2] Restart XXE. [3] Use File|New and choose "Book" or "Article" from "DocBook+HTML Forms". [4] You can also play with a sample article you'll find in <XXE_user_preferences_directory>/config/docbook_html_forms/sample.xml. Simply use File|Open to load it. Now, some explanations: * *Plain* DocBook 4.2 does not support HTML forms, nor it does support HTML tables. * Plain DocBook *4.3* does not support HTML forms either, but it does support HTML tables. * The version of DocBook officially supported by XXE is still 4.2. That's why the configuration I've created for you is based on DocBook 4.2. * The plain DocBook DTDs 4.2 and 4.3 have been extended by adding the following modules: - EBNF Module - HTML Forms Module - MathML Module - SVG Module This gives 8 more DTDs which are bundled with XXE, just in case advanced users want to play with them. * Out of the box, you cannot use these extended DTDs with XXE. You need to create special XXE configurations for them. (I've created one for you but please don't ask me to tune it to really suit your needs.) * Currently, we have no plan to support anything other than plain DocBook. (XXE is not a DocBook editor. XXE is a generic XML editor. ***For us, DocBook is mainly a complex use case***. Of course, we also use it to write our reference manuals because this DTD is very good at that.) * If we had plans to really support extended DocBook DTDs we would choose MathML, SVG and EBNF and certainly not HTML Forms, because we simply do not understand the use of this extended DTD. * Next version of XXE (V2.8p1) will fully support HTML tables in DocBook 4.3 (though we don't understand the purpose of adding HTML tables to an already *extremely* complex DTD). But currently, this is not the case: we don't yet support HTML tables in DocBook.
