discuss: Abstract
Subject:
Re: Abstract
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
30 Jan 2002 06:04:24 -0000
Message-Id: <20020129204652.A877@lafn.org>
On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 02:54:21PM +0100, Hugo van der Kooij wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Lars Bj?rndal wrote:
>
> > Using linuxdoc latest version:
> >
> > I want to have an introduction before the index (toc). I've tried to
> > put this section in <abstract> before the TOC. But then I get trouble
> > because I need some <itemize>-things. How can I do such things?
>
> I guess you have found out the hard way why linuxdoc is a limited toolset.
> So I would suggest to use docbook SGML instead. (But that's my personal
> view.)
If you only write a short paragraph for an abstract, then you could use
linuxdoc. It's nice that linuxdoc doesn't normally require end tags.
But for this case, if you put <itemize> as the next tag following
<abstract>, it thinks it's the end-of-abstract. Linuxdoc could be
smarter than this and allow certain tags within the <abstract>
environment. But once this is permitted, then you would need to use the
end tag (or know which tags would act like the end-tag </abstract>).
There have been related criticisms of linuxdoc: someone wanted to use
font tags within a verbatim environment. For clean converting of
linuxdoc to docbook, the font tags in linuxdoc shouldn't be used.
So allowing <itemize> within the <abstract> environment would be nice
but it would introduce more complexity which is what linuxdoc strives to
avoid. I'm still in favor of this complexity since most people that use
it wouldn't need to know about it. But I think it's low priority.
David Lawyer
