Important Docs Info!!

["David C. Mason" <dcm redhat com>]

Docs people - please read!

There are a few tags in DocBook that are "empty" tags - which means
they do not enclose text. For example you can have <xref
linkend="foo"> and you do not have to close it. This *is* valid in
SGML.

With the work being done on our 'on the fly' DocBook to HTML engine
for the 2.0 help browser, and our impending move to DocBook XML, we
will need to start closing these tags in the way introduced in XML.

XML includes what is called 'self-identifying empty tags' which can be
closed like so... <xref linkend="foo" />. We will need to close all
empty tags this way in order to move forward. Do not worry about your
current docs and using jade against them - jade can handle
self-identifying empty tags already so you will see no changes in your
docs while still using SGML.

The empty tags in DocBook are:

<xref>, <anchor>, <beginpage>, and <sbr>

We will need to update all of our docs before the 2.0 help browser
arrives or your doc will not be 'built' in it. Obviously this gives us
plenty of time but it will also allow you to make it a habit.

The news on DocBook XML is good - it looks like an official beta
version will be coming out very soon - so we might be able to make a
move very soon. (Of course we still need some brave hacker to write a
DocBook XML parser package that will create ps, pdf, ascii, html, etc
with DocBook XML so writers can write docs for things other than the
help browser - maybe Havoc can add this to his cool project ideas
list!)

If anyone has any questions, please let me know!

Dave
-- 

          David Mason
        Red Hat AD Labs

        dcm@redhat.com