Susan F. wrote: > > i work in a small team of mostly non-developer types responsible for > translating and editing technical documents that were originally created > by developer types in another department who recently choose XXE/DocBook > as their solution for document creation. rather abruptly XXE has been > thrust upon my team - we were using MS Word. no one on my team has ever > worked with an XML editor before (beyond ArocEdit) so our learning curve > is very steep. there are many components and concepts and layers of xml > abstraction that we must quickly understand so that we can use this tool > to the best of its capabilities and utilize the features we need. >
I'm sorry for this situation. XXE is clearly not designed to replace MS Word. If you are satisfied and productive writing technical documentation using MS Word, then it is definitely not a good idea to switch to another tool. (Fortunately for us, there is a small market of persons who dislike writing technical documentation using MS Word.) > forgive me if i'm asking a question that is beyond your scope of concern > or say something completely wrong; it's hard to know the boundaries > between XXE, XXE configuration files, DocBook files (CSS, templates, > stylesheets and schema) and i'm new to this tool and technology. That's normal because we designed XXE as follows: * A technical writer is just supposed to use XXE. She/he is not supposed to learn how it works and how to customize/extend it[*]. * An internal or external consultant, we call it *The* *Local* *Guru*, is supposed to read all the documentation found here: Documentation for the local guru, http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/documentation.shtml in order to customize/extend XXE on the behalf of a group of technical writers. The local guru is not necessarily the IT-type of person. It may be a technical writer but in such case, she/he will have to spend numerous hours reading a lot of technical documentation before even attempting to customize/extend XXE. > we are using XXE 4.2.1 now and i can see that it "comes with" DocBook, > DocBook5, XHTML DTDs by default and that each DTD has its own set of > CSSs. my question is, which set of CSSs are the prevailing set when > there are 2 or more sets existing in the XMLmind_XML_Editor\addon\config > folder: DocBook\css or DocBook5\css or XHTML\css? when i open one of our > technical documents (XML file), how does XMLMind know to use DocBook vs > DocBook5? both seem to be loaded into XXE at startup. > If you take the time to read "XMLmind XML Editor - Configuration and Deployment", http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/configure/index.html, you'll learn that XXE dynamically discovers and loads *configurations* at start up time. A configuration is associated to a document type (DocBook 4, DocBook 5, XHTML, DITA topic, DITA map, etc). A configuration adapts the behavior of XXE (schema, CSS, menu, toolbar, keyboard bindings, document templates, element templates, save options, spell-checking options, conversion to other formats, etc) to the type of document being opened. Each configuration starts with a rule which is used to detect that the document being opened actually belongs to the type associated to the configuration. All detection rules at tried in turn, until a matching one is found. Then the configuration containing the detection rule is ``activated'' for the document being opened. Fortunately, all this is happens very quickly and is transparent for the end-user. DocBook 5 example. Excerpts of XXE_install_dir/addon/config/docbook5/docbook5.xxe: --- <detect> <rootElementNamespace>http://docbook.org/ns/docbook</rootElementNamespace> </detect> --- which reads: if XXE opens a document having a root element having "http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"; as its namespace, then it is a DocBook 5 document and as such, XXE must use this configuration. Among many other things, docbook5.xxe also specifies which CSS style sheets to use (what follows is added to the View menu when a DocBook 5 document is opened): --- <css name="DocBook" location="css/docbook5.css" /> <css name="Images displayed as thumbnails" alternate="true" location="css/thumbnails.css" /> <css name="Document structure" alternate="true" location="css/structure.css" /> <css name="Show info about included elements" alternate="true" location="css/visible_inclusions.css" /> --- Of course, there are similar configuration files for DocBook 4, XHTML, DITA, etc. --- [*] However: [1] A technical writer can install add-ons using "Options|Install Add-ons". See http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/optionsMenu.html [2] A technical writer can customize an existing configuration by using "Options|Customize Configuration". See http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/optionsMenu.html#customizeConfigurationMenu --- PS: Please use the xmleditor-support at xmlmind.com public mailing list as your questions seem not to contain any confidential information and seem to always be of general interest.
