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RE: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help
Subject:RE: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help From:"France Baril" <France -dot- Baril -at- ixiasoft -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:00:25 -0500
For me if you customize docbook, it is not docbook anymore. If I remember well, when I read about the standard, I also read that although you can customize docbook, it is not advisable as the tools would have to be customized to use the new elements or attributes and you loose the advantage of being able to send documents so that everyone can read them through their preferred interface layout.
As for linearity, I meant that you should normally follow the chapter/book preesentation, which is not so great for the web. Then again, I was told that some people just use <section> as the basic physical document element, and then just organize them with something similar to a topic map, so that they can change the order or take some topic in and out out whenever need be.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Henning [mailto:henning -at- r-l -dot- de]
Sent: Tue 12/16/2003 2:48 AM
To: France Baril; TECHWR-L
Cc:
Subject: Re: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help
> You do not get the flexibility of adapting the semantic for field
> specific indexing and search purposes.
Sure I do: DocBook is specifically designed to be extendable, so I can
add my own elements if I need them.
> You do not get the flexibility of organizing the content for your
> specific single-sourcing needs, for example if you use tasks only in
> the online help and tasks and exercises in a training manual or if you
> want to re-order information into small modules.
Again, I can easily do that by extending the DocBook model (e.g.,
through custom attributes).
> Docbook, is mainly linear. The basic modules are chapters. You need to
> make a lot of transformations to re-organize the content for many
> purposes.
Which is true for any XML document: It is mainly linear - that's the
way XML is designed. You can interpret it as something else or
transform it into a non-linear (and non-XML) form, but every XML
document is by definition a linear representation of a tree structure.
Regards
Jan Henning
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Jan Henning
ROSEMANN & LAURIDSEN GMBH
Am Schlossberg 14, D-82547 Eurasburg, Germany
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
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The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
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