Re: knowledge base/docs site?

[Gene Heskett <gene_heskett iolinc net>]

On Wednesday 01 January 2003 23:56, Jeff Waugh wrote:
><quote who="Matt Rose">
>
>> 	With this in mind, I've been playing around with TWiki, a
>> WikiWiki program with rcs as well, so that people could just
>> input documentation, or view it.  It seems to be fairly sensibly
>> organized, and with a little tweaking could be a great program
>> for keeping all of the documentation for GARNOME in one place,
>> sensibly organized so that people could find information quickly
>> and easily.  Is this something that people want?
>
>Thanks, but no, not a Wiki. I've said many times that Docbook
> documentation will be gratefully accepted (as it's easy to work
> with, easy to add to, easy to maintain, etc).
>
>When someone feels the urge, they'll contribute. :-)
>
>- Jeff

This may come across as me being pretty stupid, but I think it needs 
to be said.

Just one problem with Docbook stuff Jeff.  In RedHat, including 8.0, 
there is apparently no known method to actually read a docbook file 
without also haveing to wade thru paragraphs of formatting codes, 
it looks like fubared html to me when I try to read it with less or 
vi.

So as far as I'm concerned, docbook is a useless format and will 
continue to be so until a reader thats possibly even an editor too 
is as easy to use as the man/info readers are becomes part of the 
linux standard install.  Apparently it is not a universal format 
AFA Red Hat is concerned.  I had it install everything the last 
couple of times.

When I've asked on the mailing lists I'm on about a docbook file 
reader, the general response has been 'shrug' rather than telling 
me what package I need to install to be able to read and or print 
such files.  Either its so darned simple its ridiculous & I can't 
see the tree for all the forest, or too complicated for RedHat or 
kde to actually put one in the menus.

I've about give up asking "so how DO you read a docbook file?" & 
"whats its dot extension?" because the answers have not been 
forthcoming so far.

So how does a redhat user actually go about reading a docbook file, 
complete and properly formatted as the author intended for it to be 
seen/printed?

Is there a common directory location or a $MANPATH like variable to 
setup so that the reader will automaticly search the likely places 
where they may be put by the "make install" routines in the 
makefiles?

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III 500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP 1400mhz  512M
99.21% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly