Documentation and DocBook and SgmlTools

[Jochem Huhmann <joh unidui uni-duisburg de>]

This may be of interest for some...

The SgmlTools-Projekt (http://www.sgmltools.org) is right now moving
from the old linuxdoc DTD (used for Linux Howtos and also for the GNOME
FAQ) to DocBook. Version 2.0 of SgmlTools will contain Jade and backends
for generating html, dvi, ps, rtf, text and MIF (Framemaker) dokuments.
There is also a backend for converting sgml from the old linuxdoc DTD to
DocBook. All the wrapping scripts are written in python now, btw.

I've grabbed a copy of the latest developer version 1.1.17 and gave 
it a try. Compilation went smoothly (./configure; make; make install), 
no problems.

Now I grabbed a copy of the GNOME-FAQ sgml-sources and converted it to 
DocBook:

joh@nova:/home/joh > sgmltools -b ld2db FAQ.sgml
joh@nova:/home/joh > 

No errors, but a new file "FAQ.db-sgml": The GNOME-FAQ in DocBook :-) So I
went on and tried to render that to HTML now:

joh@nova:/home/joh > sgmltools -b html FAQ.db-sgml
/usr/local/bin/jade:<OSFD>0:694:43:X: reference to non-existent ID "IOP"
/usr/local/bin/jade:<OSFD>0:670:15:X: reference to non-existent ID "OA"
/usr/local/bin/jade:/usr/local/share/sgml/stylesheets/docbook/html/dblink.dsl:182:1:E: XRef LinkEnd to missing ID 'OA']
/usr/local/bin/jade:/usr/local/share/sgml/stylesheets/docbook/html/dblink.dsl:182:1:E: XRef LinkEnd to missing ID 'IOP'] 


Looks like two broken cross-references, but no serious errors. I've
uploaded the resulting html to http://www.revier.com/~joh/Gnome/FAQ/ -
have a look at it, if you like. It may be a little bit ugly, but there 
is so much room for customization with DSSSL...

It seems like SgmlTools may become a fine framework for all working with 
DocBook and Jade. 

I would also recommend everyone seriously working with DocBook to
subscribe to the sgmltools mailinglist.


	Jochem