Talk:DocBook

Links section

The links section seems misleading. It says "DocBook.org official site" -- which seems to imply this is the official site for DocBook, which it isn't (though it is a very good site!). It's the official site for the O'Reilly book about DocBook. If there's an official site for DocBook (the standard), it's probably the OASIS one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.16.250.100 (talk • contribs) 2004-10-28T17:32:31 (UTC)

It might be helpful to mark which links are for DocBook/XML and which are for DocBook/SGML. The DocBook Newbie Guide is SGML-only (and hasn't been updated in almost 2 years), for example.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MartinKozak~enwiki (talk • contribs) 2005-12-12T17:16:52 (UTC)

I'll attempt to correct that. I was also confused about that. The website is linked twice (at least) on this page, this looks as spam. KHaskell 11:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

== Redirection from WikiText == Eh, why is tag WikiText redirected to this term? Probably mistake? --Martin Kozák 23:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

DocBook 5

DocBook 5 final looks like it's going to drop any time now. When it does, should the article be updated to talk about DocBook 5, and simply mention that there were prior SGML and XML DTD-defined versions? Korval 05:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems like a good idea to move any information about SGML and XML DTD versions to a "Past versions" or "History" section, but I don't think too much should be taken out. Herorev 06:06, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Latex

Can someone compare this with Latex/Tex?--Adoniscik (talk) 16:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is the sample in LaTeX:

Sample document

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

\title{Very simple book}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\chapter{Chapter 1}

Hello world!

I hope that your day is proceeding \emph{splendidly}!

\chapter{Chapter 2}

Hello again, world!

\end{document}

%

Isn't it much more elegant? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.189.90.55 (talk) 2009-09-21T07:08:53 (UTC)

I think that is a matter of taste, but comparing a hierarchical structural format with a non-hierarchical command language is a little like contesting whether the length or the width of the rectangle is the most important distance. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 09:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Elegant or no, it doesn't solve the main problem that DocBook is intended to solve. The general idea behind DocBook is to be a structural markup language. One that can be transformed into many different forms. A Latex processor can take a Latex document and convert it into many formats. But most of these forms are only suitable for printing (dvi, Postscript, PDF, etc). Whereas DocBook can be converted into Man files, HTML, CHM, and other non-paged media. And because DocBook is a well-specified language, where the semantic meaning of its tags are well-defined, it is relatively easy to write an XSLT script or other form of processor to convert it into any new formats that come along. Korval (talk) 03:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Product names

{{request edit}}

Could someone who is not affliated with a DocBook software vendor please assess whether the following products deserve mention? As the article states, any XML Editor can also be a functional DocBook editor. The features listed for the products that are mentioned are not unique to those products, nor does this list reflect what are the most commonly-used DocBook editors. In my opinion, all of the following text is spam and should be removed:

A number of XML editing suites exist that come with DocBook schemas, including Emacs in nXML mode and XML Copy Editor. There are also WYSIWYG editors like XMLmind Editor; the Oxygen XML Editor's Author mode, which displays the DocBook document with CSS-based visual formatting for the individual elements; and Syntext Serna, which performs on-the-fly XSL transformations (XSLT).

Thanks, Walk Up Trees (talk) 22:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

These are listed specifically because they have DocBook support in some way built-in. Either shipping with the schemas or they have some special coding (one way or another) that understands and handles DocBook. It's important to point out that there are many tools with explicit DocBook support, particularly WYSIWIG editors that make writing DocBook easy. However, the statements as currently structured do constitute spam, or at least make it easy to add spam, so I'll rework them. Korval (talk) 20:18, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

 In progress. Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 22:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

As this is being dealt with, I have cancelled out the {{request edit}} for now, to avoid duplication of efforts. If further assistance from other editors is required in the future, please use a further request. Thanks,  Chzz  ►  09:19, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

DocBook readers

I miss a section on DocBook viewers.--78.48.71.81 (talk) 09:17, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by a DocBook viewer? As a format, DocBook is not intended to be given to someone. Particularly not someone who is not technically inclined. While the format is quite readable, the idea behind DocBook is that you write in the format and then convert it into some other format for display purposes. This gives you control over the visual presentation of information. The closest thing to DocBook "viewers" are WYSIWIG XML editors. And those are already discussed in the article under DocBook authoring. Korval (talk) 03:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)