[Mono-list] GNOME.NET Tutorial

[Alejandro Sánchez Acosta]

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El mar, 12-11-2002 a las 12:52, Guenther Roith escribi=F3:
> Hello!
>=20
> I fully agree, after playing with docbook some weeks ago.
>=20
> My suggestion would be to clearly format with css.
> If we write correct xhtml, we could even convert more or less easily.
>=20
> Currently code blocks are marked with <div class=3D"code"></div> and head=
ings
> are marked with the html <h1-6> tags.
>=20
> Johannes

About why use Docbook: it's not really for the output, is for
structuring the content. The semantic markup is content in the same way
text is. XHTML could do the same? If you use poor docbook markup the
answer is yes, but at the first moment you use more high semantic
meaning marks the answer is definitively no.

About quality docbook output: I don't find it particularly horrible. I
agree there is very important problems caused by the TeX back-end for
the PDF/PS output. But this backend is being rewritten these days in the
XSL side[1]. The HTML output is very beautiful instead. Another very
important point is the docbook stylesheets are internationalized into
lots of languages. This mean the presentation will respect the national
language ortho-typographical rules.

[1] for example passivetex, a new TeX backend and the Apache FO
processor, FOP. The docbook XSL stylesheets  and passivetex can be found
now in recent versions of Redhat Linux, for example.

About is tedious to write docbook: I agree it could be a bit tedious to
write it with a plain text editor, and there is lots of people using it
in that way, but there is lots of alternatives this days almost ready:
new abiword docbook output, OpenOffice, the new conge, some java
editors, the docbook vim mode, etc. Also you have a hacked tidy[2]
version for fast docbook prototyping from HTML. So, you are plenty of
alternatives :) And the docbook doubts can be resolved very fast in the
present email forums (at least available in English and Spanish).

[2] http://olea.org/paquetes-rpm

BTW, you've noticed that all important free software projects are using
docbook, migrating into it or considering it. The most important part is
there is a community to support you and who is writing and planning very
needed tools (and you can thing in the complex problem of translation
[3]) which be expressively optimized for docbook

[3] For learn more about that, in Spanish:
https://bugzilla.hispalinux.es/show_bug.cgi?id=3D44

Finaly, the idea of writing a CSS stylesheet seems so easy, but think
for a minute, if you want a high quality HTML stylesheet you have
available the docbook one yet. And the CSS will not do a great work with
the PDF output, at least not as good as the present docbook2pdf command.
So, why redo it? What do you want to do, to write stylesheets or
documentation instead?

For more information about why choose docbook:

      * http://www.docbook.org/wiki/moin.cgi/WhyDocBook
      * http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/DocBook-Demystification-HOWTO/x28.html

I hope this message helps you for consider your thoughts. And please
have in mind that the docbook community will be pleased assisting you
for creating the best quality documentation.

Cheers

-- Alex

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