Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 94-1-9-19:55
From: "Linux Activists" <[email-masked]>
To: "Linux-Activists" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 00:13:00 +0200

Topics:
	 Re: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 94-1-9-6:12

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From: [email-masked] (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Re: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 94-1-9-6:12
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 1994 17:34:37 +0200

> From: Thomas Dunbar <[email-masked]>
>
> how about a little more precision here: i suspect that when people say
> SGML, they actually mean the subset HTML+ and in particular the subset
> of HTML+ understood by Mosaic. dont mean to be pedantic, just want to
> understand what others mean.

I'm looking at the QWERTZ DTD right now. Why? It has support for LaTeX,
nroff, HTML (could add support for HTML+) and others. It also has
commands that are very close analogues to LaTeX, i.e. <sect>, <list>
and so on. I've been playing with it and it produces very nice output.
We could easily extend it to use the linuxdoc.sty macros. (In fact, it's
a one-line change in the document source to do so.) 

>  imo, current implementations of HTML+ can't produce good looking books.
> What is needed is something more sophisticated than Mosaic to run the html
> thru, say TeX. but then why not just keep the doc in LaTeX, taking care
> to limit oneself to what's convertable by ones latex2html.

Well, QWERTZ does produce nice output, and can do more or less everything
that LaTeX can do, it's structured like LaTeX, and it can be converted to
all of these other formats. Plus the tools are rather small and simple;
two binaries (the SGML parser) plus the DTD and replacement files, and
a couple of shell scripts. Very easy.

Speaking of your book, would you like to include the Milieu in the LDP
set? I haven't seen the most recent version (saw a much older version
a while back) but it was very interesting.

> guess my main point is to argue that one must choose between good
> hardcopy and good screencopy. 

I think that the QWERTZ DTD can do both. I know that the LaTeX is good.
I just need to verify the HTML/nroff output. We could also write a texinfo
format with little trouble (it may have been done already).

> From: [email-masked] (Gavin Thomas Nicol)
> Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 94-1-8-22:23
> Date: Wed, 9 Feb 1994 06:00:35 +0200
> 
> There are other alternative SGML DTD's. One can choose DocBook, QWERTZ
> (which Matt favours), 

I just like it because it would be very easy to move over, and the
replacement files already exist for the main formats that I'm looking
for. And I think it's possible to write a QWERTZ replacement file
for HTML+. Is this correct? If so, then we *have* HTML+ from the QWERTZ.

Others have pointed out that HTML+ can't produce nice printed output
on its own, and printed output is our primary goal. But I'm willing to
look into it further.

The SGML stuff is initially confusing, but that's mostly because there's
a lack of (free) documentation for it---the docs assume that you know
and understand SGML, or that you are about to sit down and write your
own DTD (neither of which we are doing here). Actually writing and
formatting docs with a prebuilt DTD is very simple; for example, the
QWERTZ format looks like:

(For a LaTeX-like "letter"):

<!doctype qwertz system>
<letter>

<from> Matt Welsh
<address> 
210 Lake St Apt 7F &nl
Ithaca, N.Y. 14850 &nl
USA

<to> Michael K. Johnson
<address>
Michael's House &nl
Chapel Hill, N.C.

<opening> Dear Michael,

Where's the book that Olaf supposedly sent four months ago?
Did the overseas mailboat sink?

<closing> Sincerely,

</letter>

The various "environments" set up by Qwertz correspond very closely
to LaTeX; it even includes support for tables, figures, math mode, 
international characters, and so on. Since we're essentially LaTeX-based
now, it's a very straightforward transition. As I said, though, the
acid test is the HOWTO project; we'll see how that goes. We may end
up modifying or writing our own "linuxdoc" DTD and corresponding 
replacement files for just what we need; this is the kind of thing that
could be used in Linux docs across the board, if implemented well.

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