gnome-db2html3 design questions

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

Folks -

I originally posted this to the gnome-help-system list, but since some
of the people who might be interested in the discussion are not signed
up to that list, and there is some brokenness to the list that makes
tit impossible to sign up new list members, it seems appropriate to
repost here.

We need to make some design decisions about the new xml->html help
rendering system. I've never done anything like this before, so I need
some help.

I've got a rough version of gnome-db2html3 done, which takes as its
input "filename?sectid" and outputs html, duplicating gnome-db2html2's
behavior.

For now, I'm using Norman Walsh's XSL DocBook stylesheets,
but we will add a GNOME customization layer.

questions:

1) Should we create a dependency on an external DocBook package for
installation of the dtd or install our own?

 a) If we create a dependency on an external DocBook package, how do we
 determine where it is installed? Catalogs are an option, but libxml
 does not support them, so we would have to write our own catalog
 support into gnome-db2html3. DV assures me this is easy. I have not
 yet looked into doing it, and nothing is easy for me. :-)

 b) If we install our own, where should we put it? The LSB has a
 proposed location: /usr/share/sgml/docbook/xml-dtd-4.1.2/
 (http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/gLSB/gLSB/sgmlr002.html)

2) Same question for the xsl - do we install our own copy of Norman
Walsh's stylesheets or depend on an external package?

 a) Again, if we create a dependency, how do we determine where it is
 installed?

 b) If we install our own, where should we put it? The LSB has
 a proposed answer: /usr/share/sgml/docbook/xsl-stylesheets-1.12/
 
3) If we install our own stuff, what effect would use of LSB file
locations have on non-Linux systems? How do we do this in a way that
will work for them?

Cheers,


-- 
John Fleck
jfleck inkstain net (h)
jfleck abqjournal com (w)
http://www.abqjournal.com/scitech/
http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/