RE: XML/DocBook Tools [was Re: GNOME Documentation Style Guide]

["andy.piper" <andy piper freeuk com>]

>===== Original Message From Naba Kumar <kh_naba yahoo com> =====
>Me too here with the similar problem. I don't have redhat 7.1 (I am still
>using 6.2, because I think it is more stabler), though I have upgraded
>gnome to 1.4 from tarballs. And later discovered that the ALL the gnome
>manuals where not properly generated from the sgml files.
>
>Then I discovered that gnome-doc-tools where missing. Not a single 
application
>set the dependency for this package (in the configure). Since, I firmly
>belive that normal docbook stylesheets donot work for gnome sgml docs, I
>consider it as a necessity for all the applications to set a dependency
>in the configure (if possible) for the gnome-doc-tools.

Well, isn't gnome-doc-tools more of a "helpful" package for GDP-type 
developers, more than a mandatory package for everyone? Quote: "This package 
is mainly for the GDP project members to use to get the default tools we use 
in creating GNOME docs". I do agree that it is probably pretty critical when 
compiling GNOME from source!

>Ok, then I installed gnome-doc-tools, and regenerated the manuals.
>Still docbook won't recognize the gnome DTD, resulting in the same
>old problem. I think docbook is unable to find the DTD reference
>in the CATALOG. Anybody know how to fix this? I don't mean the
>command line fix. I want permenent fix in the system catalog files,
>or something similar to that.

A very helpful conversation with Telsa and some others on IRC the other night 
(thanks folks :) revealed that you need to use 'jw' to generate the manuals on 
RH7.1. I assume that the same may apply on 6.2, if you are getting the stack 
of DTD errors I was having. I can't remember the options you need to pass to 
'jw', but I've written a shell script to do the job for me on my machine at 
home, and I'll provide that when I get a chance. That *does* work. I agree 
that we shouldn't have to be fiddling around like this, though - surely 
there's a more organic solution?

Not sure if my experience of the problem stems from having used 
gnome-doc-tools 2.0 (the RH 7.1 version), which doesn't seem to contain the 
same collection of tools as earlier releases. I'm new to all of this 8-)

One other problem somewhere in all of this - I suspect the stylesheets - is 
that the stylesheet-images used for <note>, <warning> etc. currently have to 
be in GIF format (although some packages provide PNG versions, they are not 
used by the tools as they stand AFAICT). Should this be fixed too?

Andy