I'm giving DocBook my +1.
I luvya Clinton. Any way ya wanna do it man is OK with me.
Seriously I think this is the way to go (and I really did go and print the devguide PDF and read it on a train ;=) I did a brief evaluation of DocBook about a year ago - just enough so I could argue it's strengths and advocate using it in my dayjob. Unfortunately the boss said "No! Word is the best documentation tool ever and is soooo easy to use" so our docs still suck and all I can offer you guys is fond foggy memories... I found the amount of "getting started" material overwhelming and there was a lot of outdated material out there (basically you wanna ignore most of the DSSSL stuff and go for XSL). There seemed to be endless variations of DTDs/Schemas but the basic distinction was "book" or "article" (I guess you folks want "book" for the devguide and maybe "article" for the tutorial). If you are running 'dose, hate 'nix and just want to kick the tires try: http://www.e-novative.info/software/ede/ede_download.php They have a bunch of DOS-like command line programs ready to go. You can just edit some example XML template using your favourite editor and run some .bat file to convert it to pdf and HTML. Idiot proof. I have no idea how it did the magic but I guess it would be quite to easy find out. For Debian flavour Linux fans (or anyone who likes an easy to read newbie-level article even if it is probably out of date): http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/metadoc/docbook-guide.html I know one of my managers here actively uses docbook for some private projects and uses http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/ (freeware edition). I haven't tried that tool but if he can get it to work then you guys should have no problems. Eclipse lovers (myself included) should try this: http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Authoring-With-Eclipse/AuthoringWithEclipse.html Enjoy, Richard On 10/3/06, Clinton Begin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'm sold, at least enough to give it a shot. I'm giving DocBook my +1. What does everyone else think? Clinton On 10/3/06, Jeff Butler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > For me the main advantage is that the source is plain XML so it's diffable. > > Another advantage is that the source can be transformed into a large variety of formats (PDF, HTML, Word, Eclipse Help, etc.) > > Most publishers accept DOCBOOK markup as input. So if anyone every wanted to publish the developer's guide, it would be simple. (I know this is not really going to happen, but I think it says something that places like O'Reilly accept DOCBOOK) > > Jeff Butler > > > > > > On 10/3/06, Clinton Begin <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote: > > > > I'm going to look at DocBook again. I'll download the XMLMind editor and the .NET guide (but I've heard that some people just use an IDE...no XMLMind necessary). > > > > But just to refresh my memory....what are the advantages of DocBook over OOo....? > > > > Cheers, > > Clinton > > > > >
