xml/docbbok editors (was: Simplified DocBook)

Subject: xml/docbbok editors (was: Simplified DocBook)
From: Chris Gooch <chris -dot- gooch -at- lightworkdesign -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 15:32:52 +0100


Bruce (and others) -

Megan Golding wrote:

>On the GUI: Several have tried but none have succeeded, IMHO. The
>problem is that WYSIWYG is the defacto standard for doc editing in most
>people's minds. Any UI modeled on WYSIWYG principles won't work with
>DocBook.

As some may have gathered from my previous posts, I document
a software SDK/API using LaTeX. I work as the only dedicated
"docs guy" among a team of around a dozen software developers.

The developers all need to either

* access / update the real docs (latex, i.e., plain text with
semantic/logical markup which is easier to read than
xml/docbook) and/or

* provide me with draft material in whatever form they
feel happy with for me to markup in latex

Some developers happily write latex into the main docs
in perforce, others grab latex and edit it but don't check it
back in or attemp to build the docs from it, others are
Word-only-WYSIWYG-ers who send me some bumph
to tart up.

A couple of these guys (one in particular) is particularly
pathologically set against LaTeX. He says he'd be happy
if there was a good GUI, but really there isn't.

I have a long term plan to move to xml/simplified Docbook.
It seems to me the tools for xml/docbook are becoming pretty
usable. However finding an editor that this guy will be
comfortable using will be an issue. I had hoped that
a suitable IDE type almost WYSIWYG (WYSIWYM perhaps)
editor, which presents _a reasonably small number of
possible tags_ at any given point, would be ideal
(it would need wysiwyg editing of tables also as
that seems to be an issue in this person's head).

Any suggestions? (other than no-more-mr-nice-guy, get
his boss to kick his backside?). What I don't want, is for
this guy to end up keeping his own "personal" version of
"his" docs which he keeps up to date in Word, and the
"official" docs (which I edit in some system he dislikes)
becoming rapidly obsolete.

Chris.

Christopher Gooch, Technical Author
LightWork Design, Sheffield, UK.
chris -dot- gooch -at- lightworkdesign -dot- com www.lightworkdesign.com



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