Re: (sgml vs XML)+indexing

[John Sheehan <John Sheehan ireland sun com>]

Gregory Leblanc wrote:

> > Solbook is SGML based and is indeed a subset of Docbook, so it's simple to 
> > convert to Docbook, but not in the opposite direction since the GDP use 
> > certain inline tags which are not in SolBook. 
> 
> 
> Is this what the man pages on Solaris are written in now, or is it used
> for the answer books, or what?   What was the rationale behind using a
> subset of DocBook for Sun's documentation?
> 
SolBook is used for all Solaris documentation: Answerbook, online help,
printed docs, and (I think) man pages.  DocBook is very rich.  Using a
subset allows us to simplify our tools and hold more easily to an internally
agreed doc style.

> > Sun is extending SolBook to include the extra inline tags used by the GDP.
> > And we are creating filters for the metadata to allow us to flip a doc in
> > DocBook to SolBook and back again.  The reason we want to work internally 
> > in Solbook is that all the back-end corporate tools for editing, publishing, 
> > and localisation are based on the SolBook DTD.  But with the filters we can 
> > issue and exchange Gnome docs in DocBook.  
> 
> Is there a listing of the changes between SolBook and DocBook?  By the
> name "SolBook", it sounds like this is primarily for use in Solaris, is
> that a valid assumption?  (I've been storing up these questions since
> Solaris 7 arrived, now I have a real excuse to ask them)  Thanks,
> 

Yes, it's supported by the Solaris tools group, but most other product groups
in Sun use it.  

I don't have an exact list of the SolBook/DocBook differences but the tools 
group indicate that:
 - there are only 7 or 8 inline DocBook tags which are used by the GDP and 
   which are not supported by SolBook.  For example, SolBook doesn't have 
   <guimenuitem>, we bold menu items instead.  The tools group will extend 
   SolBook to support these GDP inline tags.  
 - The Gnome templates support two models -- article and book.  SolBook tools
   do not support article.  
 - SolBook does not support .png files.  We can either put .png support in
   SolBook or provide converters to change .png to other file types or back.
   
John