[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Rendering DocBook
punck@PenguinPowered.com said:
> Ya know what, I don't think I fully understand. :) All the html HOWTOs
> at www.linuxdoc.org look the same to me (ToC as the front page, each
> page linked to), and completely different from what the default html
> rendering with sgmltools is (with 'sgmltools -b html foobar.sgml').
Most HOWTO's are written in the "LinuxDoc" document type, which is processed
with SGMLtools v1.0.x. This software uses something called mapping tables to
do a sort of search&replace from SGML tags to the output format, with a bit of
Perl code to massage everything into something reasonable. The bulk of the
HOWTO's on the website have been produced with this technique.
New HOWTO's can/should be written in the "DocBook" document type, which is
processed with any of a number of tools, although they all rely on the same
engine: OpenJade. This is a validating SGML parser with a built-in DSSSL
processor, and runs the SGML input through the DSSSL stylesheet, producing
flow objects which are then interpreted by a OpenJade back-end to produce the
output format.
Now, this DSSSL writing business is sort of tricky, and there's almost no-one
on the planet who can actually do it. Luckily, a net.hero called Norm Walsh
maintains a full kit of stylesheets for DocBook, and he has built them so you
can easily extend and adapt them. However, Norm hasn't got a lot of interest
in the LDP, so his idea of how HTML output should look like is a bit different
from how the "old" HOWTO's look.
In SGMLtools v2.0 (and subsequently SGMLtools-Lite v3.0), I have made a small
attempt to get closer:
sgmltools -b html -s howtoh ....
gets you to the "built-in" HOWTO/HTML stylesheet. Let me now how you like it,
and while you're at it: sgmltools -b pdf -s howtop gives you my version of
HOWTO's for printing (note that the PDF backend only appears in v3.0).
So, now you know just as much as I do :-))
--
Cees de Groot http://www.cdegroot.com <cg@cdegroot.com>
http://www.sgmltools.org <cg@sgmltools.org>
pub 1024D/E0989E8B 2000-04-14 Cees de Groot <cg@cdegroot.com> fingerprint =
0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD 1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
PGP signature