[Bf-docboard] Re: Let's start again...

[Craig Sanders]

Martin,

I agree with you entirely.

I misspoke when I first posted - I have since found (and am learning) a
wealth of open source tools that do the job nicely. I am currently learning
emacs with a LaTex backend, and also have XMLMind. This is a commercial
package yes, but the standard edition is free and easily learned. It does a
lot of the 'legwork' in coding to xml and the output can be readily loaded
into emacs for indexing (yes, I also found out how to do that) and output to
PDF or even typesetting if we get to that point.

Your argument that we should work toward making the Blender doc set up to
date rather than cosmetically acceptable is on the mark. I would add only
that creating an index should be a priority because it makes the docs so
much more usable.

Thanks for your comments!
Craig

-----Original Message-----
From: bf-docboard-admin@blender.org
[mailto:bf-docboard-admin@blender.org]On Behalf Of Martin Kleppmann
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 2:09 AM
To: bf-docboard@blender.org
Subject: Re: [Bf-docboard] Re: Let's start again...


On Mar 16 2004, Stefano Selleri wrote:
> > What writing tools do you use? I can contribute in this area -
> > FrameMaker, Word, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, plus have
> > expert skill with WebWorks Publisher for conversions.
>
> This is the real key issue.
> Up to now EMACS was used, and this is not exactly user friendly.

I think we should really stick to XML-DocBook. It does have the
disadvantage that new contributors will have to learn it first - but would
vastly increase the amount of work if we abandoned XML since CVS wouldn't
work as effectively.

We could consider exporting DocBook to some format understood by one of
these word/layout processing packages once in a while, and creating a
beautiful layout, but our priority should probably be to keep the docs
up-to-date, not pretty.

If we extend the introduction given to XML, DocBook & CVS in the appendix
of the manual, it should be no problem for new users to get the hang of it.
And there are also various free XML editors around that would make things
easier.

Martin

--
+++ martin kleppmann +++ http://www.kleppmann.de +++

_______________________________________________
Bf-docboard mailing list
Bf-docboard@blender.org
http://www.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-docboard