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On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 17:59:48 -0500, Nathan Kopp wrote:
>
>Ron Parker <ron### [at] povray org> wrote...
>>
>> I use Windows and Unix, and I'd like DocBook because you can easily
>transform
>> it into PDF, HTML, RTF, TeX, and lots of other formats.
>
>Ron,
>
>I develop on a Windows computer. Are there free tools available for me to
>use easily DocBook? Also, the Smellenbergh brothers work primarily on the
>Mac, so free Mac tools are necessary as well.
I'm still looking for a good SGML editor. FrameMaker+SGML looks really nice,
but it's horribly expensive. WordPerfect has an SGML mode, too. I have WP
at the office, and someday I'll get around to checking out its SGML support.
The best editing solution I've found is psgml-mode for emacs, which is free,
but if you're not used to emacs you might not like it. There are commercial
XML editors, such as XMetal. There's also XED,
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ht/xed.html which you might find less intimidating
than psgml-mode. A Mac version isn't currently available, but is in
development. Another browser/editor is jumbo, http://xml-cml.org/jumbo/ which
is in Java and available for the Mac. SGML/XML itself is a lot like HTML, so
you shouldn't have any trouble editing it by hand. The main difference you'll
find is that in DocBook, you tag things by function rather than by appearance
(like HTML was supposed to work.)
The W3C has a bunch of links to XML software, some of which is written in
Java. See http://www.w3.org/XML/#software . Another good list of XML and
SGML tools is at http://209.41.82.30/cover/publicSW.html .
Jade apparently isn't available for the Mac, but it is available in source
form so presumably one could build it for the Mac. Failing that, there is
YADE, written in Java. Jade and YADE are DSSSL stylesheet processors, used
to convert DocBook to other formats. It's possible that only one of you
would need to be able to use them.
>Otherwise, we'll probably end up using HTML as the primary format and
>converting from that to other formats.
If you'll be using hand-edited HTML, you should just make the leap to DocBook,
because it's more powerful and easier to convert to other formats.
--
These are my opinions. I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html
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"Nathan Kopp" <Nat### [at] Koppcom> writes:
> Nathan Kopp <Nat### [at] Koppcom> wrote ...
> >
> > What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> > Unix?
> >
>
> I guess I worded that poorly. I was hoping for answers like:
> "I use unix, and I'd like _____."
> or
> "I use Windows, and I'd like ______."
>
I use unix, and I'd like HTML for online browsing (and perhaps gzipped
or zipped Postscript for printing).
Thomas
--
http://thomas.willhalm.de/ (includes pgp key)
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Nathan Kopp schrieb:
> I guess I worded that poorly. I was hoping for answers like:
> "I use unix, and I'd like _____."
> or
> "I use Windows, and I'd like ______."
I use Unix, and almost everything there can be converted into
almost erverything else (if it is standard compliant and does
not involve the violation of the second law of thermodynamics,
as e.g. back from PS to HTML).
Since it seems that you write (or even already wrote part of)
the manual in Word, the situation is nontrivial: Everything
that Word creates is either proprietary (.doc, .hlp with
additional tools) or noncompliant (broken .ps, broken .html).
Something like SGML or XML might be optimal for the world,
since people who have tools can convert it into everything else
(AFAIK including .rtf, opening the way into the evil empire)
and put on their FTP servers.
OTOH, forcing you to use SGML would cost your time, thus
depriving us all of more cool patches to POV.
A compromise would be to use what you are familiar with,
and publish it as RTF (for those who want to manipulate
it) and HTML for online reading. People who want to print
it can use the export function of the browser (or you just
publish a copy in .ps as well).
Btw., the .ps from MS stuff can be made compliant using
gs -sDEVICE=pswrite -other_options ...
(but this fixes the resolution and increases the filesize, and
seems to impair quality).
If you can publish only one version, HTML might be optimal
(it can be converted to .ps using browsers and printed,
if necessary).
Ralf
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rmu### [at] t-onlinede (Ralf Muschall) wrote in <388E4B7E.2DAE21BC@t-
online.de>:
>Nathan Kopp schrieb:
>
>> I guess I worded that poorly. I was hoping for answers like:
>> "I use unix, and I'd like _____."
>> or
>> "I use Windows, and I'd like ______."
I use Windows, Amiga, Lynix and Mac. HTML would be my choice above
all others! <smile> I really don't see how HTML is a bad choice for
printing. All it takes is a bit of pre-planning; put each page in a fixed
width table, so the format when printed will look exactly like the format
on screen, and make sure each page will fit on a printed page. Use this
template for every page, and all you have to worry about is what to write,
not how to format it.
Hyperlinks are, by far, more important to me than pretty printouts
anyway. If you want to get fancy, some simple scripts can be created to do
searches on the HTML pages that will work on any modern browser. But a
well thought out contents page is fine.
Rich
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On 26 Jan 2000 13:12:20 -0500, Rich wrote:
>All it takes is a bit of pre-planning; put each page in a fixed
>width table, so the format when printed will look exactly like the format
>on screen, and make sure each page will fit on a printed page.
Dear God, no! What of the different screen resolutions in use around here?
Many of us run at 800x600, but many others run at 1600x1200. No single
fixed width will work well with both sizes.
PDF is the thing to use if you're going for printed material and you insist
on a layout-based format. It supports hyperlinks, it is always the same
layout, and it has good print quality. Unfortunately, Acrobat's not available
for the Amiga.
I still contend that a good content-based format (DocBook, TexInfo) would
be better than any layout-based format (modern HTML, PS, PDF, Word) simply
because it can be converted to lots of different layout-based formats and
subformats (e.g. different stylesheets for different HTML usage.) Good
converters also support automatic TOC and index generation.
If nobody else does it, I'll make an attempt to write a template for Word
for DocBook creation.
--
These are my opinions. I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html
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Nathan Kopp wrote:
> What would be the desired format for MegaPov documentation for Windows and
> Unix?
Plain text (.txt) with references to the included images (if any), and HTML
that incorperates the images with the text.
David
--
Keeper of the family pets.
"You want fish? I got fish. I got fish, and eels, and turtles, and snails, and
frogs, and dragons and cats..."
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Bob Hughes wrote:
>
> Win. HTML.
> Couldn't some sort of generic html be made as a single page (file)?
>
I agree. HTML. Anything that can run a web browser can read HTML,
making it almost as universal as plain text, and that way it can
be downloaded or made available online that way (which would allow
for better distribution of updates if needed). All I ask is an
index alphabetized by feature with links to the appropriate
sections. Then in wouldn't matter if the file was all in one or
split by, for example, what patches the features came from.
The only gripe I have currently is I have to rummage around
for a while to find the feature I want to experiment with, but
the actual HTML presentation is just fine.
Charles
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Rich wrote:
> rmu### [at] t-onlinede (Ralf Muschall) wrote in <388E4B7E.2DAE21BC@t-
> online.de>:
>
> >Nathan Kopp schrieb:
> >
> >> I guess I worded that poorly. I was hoping for answers like:
> >> "I use unix, and I'd like _____."
> >> or
> >> "I use Windows, and I'd like ______."
>
> I use Windows, Amiga, Lynix and Mac. HTML would be my choice above
> all others! <smile> I really don't see how HTML is a bad choice for
> printing. All it takes is a bit of pre-planning; put each page in a fixed
> width table, so the format when printed will look exactly like the format
> on screen, and make sure each page will fit on a printed page.
No
nononononooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
arggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp.
Sorry. It's just that fixed width tables in HTML should be avoided at all
costs. You probably don't know how many pixels to set it to match my fonts to
make things work. Also, MSIE does horrible things to font sizes, but Netscape
does not. Also, even MSIE is maybe 10% off on font sizes between Mac and
Windows...
Also, I think HTML is a good choice, but that the crud that MS Word puts out
and calls HTML is not.
--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.
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Ron Parker wrote:
>
> PDF is the thing to use if you're going for printed material and you insist
> on a layout-based format. It supports hyperlinks, it is always the same
> layout, and it has good print quality. Unfortunately, Acrobat's not available
> for the Amiga.
>
I just found a link to a perl library that supports the creation of pdf
documents:
http://www.pdflib.com
It's in a beta state but a very good german computer magazine publisher
made a very good article about it.
Marc
--
Marc Schimmler
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Ken wrote in message <388B878C.B511D811@pacbell.net>...
>.txt is fine by me.
What sensible answer.
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