Re: Software for Documentation?

[Chris Despopoulos <cud -at- ARRAKIS -dot- ES>]

If you want to read HTML into Maker, I suggest using
Maker+SGML, and setting up an SGML Application (template,
EDD, R/W rules, and -ghasp- API client) that converts it
well.  That is the only way I know of to read HTML into
Maker...  Either that, or scripts that convert HTML into
MIF, which would be about as easy to do IMHO.

I experimented with the Maker+SGML approach about a year
ago, and in a day (less, really) I could read everything but
tables and graphics, and make it look like an HTML browser's
version of the text.  Setting up  acceptable formatting
would (ostensibly) be easy to do.  I would ask for two to
four weeks to go from proof of concept to a real
implementation.

Going back out to HTML is an issue...  Either use the Maker
HTML out, or take the Maker+SGML app and write export into
it as well.  To use the Maker to HTML feature, I suggest you
design templates that facilitate saving to HTML.

The point is that true single-source that includes HTML (but
not SGML) SHOULD be possible with Maker, but I don't know
that anybody has done it right.

I am finishing up a project for a company that is using SGML
as the single source, and processing the SGML to generate
HTML...  I'm writing the Maker+SGML part of the process.
This might be the better way to go...  SGML captures more
about the document, and is easier to "dumb down" into HTML
than is a Maker document.  And, you can use Maker+SGML as
the authoring tool, which checks validity, automatically
formats according to structure, etc.  But you are talking
about a proprietary, inhouse system that includes
Maker+SGML, as well as other processes.  More complex, more
expensive.  The payoff needs to be worth it, which usually
means BIG company, MANY pages.

cud

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