On 2010-11-19 15:59-0800 Alan W. Irwin wrote: > The current status is I have collected (revision 11337) a list of the > backend tools we currently use in doc/docbook/README.developers, and I > hope to get advice on newer/better replacements (if any) for those > tools through a post I am about to send to the DocBook App mailing > list. If I obtain some useful information as a result of that > post, I will share it here.
There are quite a few possibilities: 1. man pages (currently done by a perl script which I believe nobody understands): a. use refentry tags in api.xml and xslproc + docbook-xsl/manpages/docbook.xsl b. use refentry tags in api.xml and use docbook2x 2. info pages: stick with the current docbook2x approach 3. html: convert from old dsssl approach (openjade, etc., which are completely dead in the water/no longer maintained) to modern xsl approach following method documented in "DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide" at http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html. That reference recommends (at least by using it in examples) the FOP tool for the XSL-FO (Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects) processor. That recommendation of FOP was confirmed on the DocBook App mailing list. 4. text (dvi, PostScript, and PDF): a. PDF and PostScript: convert from the old dsssl approach to modern xsl approach. "DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide" at http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html documents the process for obtaining PDF using FOP, and http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/1.0/output.html documents a whole list of other output formats supported by FOP including PostScript. b. dvi, PDF, and PostScript: Use dblatex (http://dblatex.sourceforge.net) to produce latex, then ordinary latex tools to produce dvi, PostScript and PDF. Tests should be made to see if this does as well or better than the above FOP-based approach for producing PDF and PostScript. This method does seem to be the only modern way to produce dvi. So there are a lot of potential new backend alternatives here (except for info output), and they all have to be compared in terms of quality of output, how they handle UTF-8, etc. Realistically, it's going to be many months down the road before I can clear a block of time to look at this so if anybody else is keen, I would be extremely happy if they took over at this point. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Increase Visibility of Your 3D Game App & Earn a Chance To Win $500! Tap into the largest installed PC base & get more eyes on your game by optimizing for Intel(R) Graphics Technology. Get started today with the Intel(R) Software Partner Program. Five $500 cash prizes are up for grabs. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intelisp-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
