[Glastonbury] Future meeting topics?

[Ian Dickinson]

Hi Martin,
> If you're interested in markup, it's very easy to
> learn. Think HTML on steroids.
> 
> Having said that, if there's any interest in the
> group as a whole, yes, I 
> could give a brain-dump on using Linux as an SGML
> editing workstation.
> [DocBook is an instance of SGML; and also of XML --
> which is itself an 
> instance of SGML.     Oops -- I think I just lost my
> audience. :o]
I know about the general relationships of XML and HTML
to SGML.  Speaking personally, what I would be hoping
for is a gentle introduction that would help me get
orientated in DocBook's world, emphasising the
pragmatic issues.  Useful topics might include: 

* editing tools (I use a variety of tools for editing
XML, including plain text editors, but I assume there
are some DocBook-aware editors, DocBook friendly
spell-checkers etc)

* validation tools

* transformation tools (I know *of* docbook-xsl, but I
don't know much *about* it!)

* pointers to useful tutorial materials

* a simple worked example of the end-to-end process

* known gotchas, tar pits and here-be-dragons'es

> Briefly, using DocBook markup will allow you to use
> one source text to 
> produce web-page, plain text, LaTeX and a few other
> formats documentation 
> -- all from the one single source document.
That's pretty much what I imagined.  My goals for my
project next year are to produce a long
(multi-chapter) manuscript that includes mathematical
formulae, be able to cross-reference figures tables
and sections between chapters, and to generate
mutli-page xhtml and a single .pdf file.  Not that I
would expect any lugog session to be structured around
my particular project, I just thought I'd mention it
in case it triggers any "you are in luck/out of luck"
thoughts.

> Pretty powerful stuff.
Didn't someone say recently that with great power
comes great responsibility? :-)

> No -- so far there hasn't ever been one.
> Sounds like a good idea.
Not original to me - I thought Steve mentioned that
there was such a thing somewhere.

> Care to start compiling some topics, and maintain a
> page on the CMS site?
Uh, sure, if no-one else wants to do it.  What do I
have to do?  I'm not sure I'm even registered as a
user on the site yet.

Cheers,
Ian



	
	
		
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