Subject: Re: Switching to XML
From: Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@g2switchworks.com>
To: "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com>
Cc: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>,
	pgsql-docs@postgresql.org, David Blewett <david@dawninglight.net>
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Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:54:00 -0600

On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 15:51, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 15:45 -0600, Scott Marlowe wrote:
> > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 15:26, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 21:58 +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> > > > Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > > > > You can create, edit, convert, save, and open docbook xml in
> > > > > OpenOfice.org.
> > > > 
> > > > Sure, there are more editing options with DocBook XML.  No one disputes 
> > > > that.  But the question at hand was about processing the DocBook.
> > > 
> > > Yes which is generated from our use of SGML which is the core of this
> > > problem and the core of the question as a whole.
> > > 
> > > SGML is making working with the documentation *harder*.
> > > 
> > > We have people that *DO NOT* contribute because of this SGML
> > > requirement. They have what I consider extremely valid reasons, namely
> > > it is dumb to require a writer to use emacs or write tags explictly.
> > 
> > I'm one.  I had the vacuuming stuff about written, but couldn't figure
> > out the tool set this summer, and didn't have the time.  Does OO make it
> > pretty much painless to work with?  I couldn't find any tools that I
> > felt comfortable using for SGML / Docbooks.
> 
> OO treats Docbook like a normal document. You will however loose styles
> (like bold, italic). It does support tables, it understands
> transformation from things like sect1 (from OO heading1) etc...
> 
> The style loss is to be expected because Docbook doesn't contain
> representation data. That belongs to a style sheet.

and let me add that I'm not really anti-sgml docbook, I just couldn't
find a "starter set" for editing the stuff.  It seemed like everything I
found on docbook xml was written for people who already use docbook xml.