discuss: Thread: linuxdoc, query, bug ?

There was recently some posts about linuxdoc and docbook.  Sorry for the belated post, but last year I learnt how to use the linuxdoc sgml markup and have found it very usable and great for a simple webpages with a standard (albeit basic) look-n-feel.

It's a shame the standard is not more popular. If it were, perhaps we wouldn't
have broken pdf document conversion, and better feature support (including
images, which AFAIK are only usable with the not terrifically documented or intuitive:
"<figure>
<eps file="none.eps">
<img src="images/tkhearts.jpg">
</figure>"
)

Fedora 4 uses linuxdoc-tools-0.9.21 (which may be the latest version).  For me
there was issues with the european vowels (such as "Jörgen"),
which aren't present with earlier versions. Can anyone confirm this on a
different OS ?

I hacked my own linuxdoc to include a <horizontalline> tag which translated
into <HR>, but markup language is pretty new to me so I couldn't get it to run
flawlessly.  

What's the status of the linuxdoc's current maintainer-ship ?
I had "http://www.debian.org/~sano/linuxdoc-tools/" as the homepage,
but this page appears down.

Thanks, Steven Atkinson
		
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On Fri, 24 Feb 2006, steven aatkinson wrote:

[Content clipped off due to absence of text wrapping...]

> What's the status of the linuxdoc's current maintainer-ship ?
> I had "http://www.debian.org/~sano/linuxdoc-tools/" as the homepage,
> but this page appears down.
>
> Thanks, Steven Atkinson

Two points:

First, the page at the URL you mentioned may be unavailable, but the content
appears to be available on a mirror located at http://download.uhulinux.hu:

$DOMAIN/mirror/http:/people.debian.org/~sano/linuxdoc-tools/archives/

Second, perhaps you are unaware of this, but most of the text of your message
failed to render properly. If memory serves correctly, your e-mail system may
be responsible for this issue. Consider using an alternative system.

TTFN,
JA

On Fri, Feb 24, 2006 at 07:57:08PM -0800, steven aatkinson wrote:
> There was recently some posts about linuxdoc and docbook.  Sorry for
> the belated post, but last year I learnt how to use the linuxdoc
> sgml markup and have found it very usable and great for a simple
> webpages with a standard (albeit basic) look-n-feel.
> 
> It's a shame the standard is not more popular. If it were, perhaps
> we wouldn't have broken pdf document conversion, and better feature
> support (including images, which AFAIK are only usable with the not
> terrifically documented or intuitive:

> "<figure>
> <eps file="none.eps">
> <img src="images/tkhearts.jpg">
> </figure>"

There's also a caption tag for putting a caption under the image.
[snip]
> What's the status of the linuxdoc's current maintainer-ship ?
> I had "http://www.debian.org/~sano/linuxdoc-tools/" as the homepage,
> but this page appears down.

I suspect that it's not being maintained.  There are some things that
need doing, like making it simpler to include images as you point out
above.  Another is having the text output generate plain text by
default instead of highlighted text containing escape sequences that
most text viewers don't know how to deal with.  This problem is
discussed in my howto: Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.

Are you interested in maintaining it?   It does need a maintainer.
In my opinion, more tags should only be added if there's a strong need
for them, since the main beauty of LinuxDoc is it's simplicity and
minimal number of tags.  You could become the maintainer of the Debian
package and then supply your revisions to other distributions too.  I
think this is what sano did.

See my comparison with DocBook at
www.lafn.org/~dave/linux/ld_vs_db.txt  

			David Lawyer

> I suspect that it's not being maintained. ...  This problem is
  > discussed in my howto: Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.
  > Are you interested in maintaining it?   It does need a maintainer.
  > In my opinion, more tags should only be added if there's a strong need
  > for them, since the main beauty of LinuxDoc is it's simplicity and
  > minimal number of tags.  You could become the maintainer of the Debian
  > package and then supply your revisions to other distributions too.  I
  > think this is what sano did.
  
  I'm interested in seeing it maintained. Whether I have the time or skills to do it,
  I'll have to reconsider July/August. The answer according to my personal data
  transputer is 66.66% no.
  
  I included the note about fedora 4 and their version of linuxdoc-tools  having a bug, just incase the LDP is considering upgrading anytime soon.
  
  Sorry about my email client being stupid, but I'm stuck with it.
  
  S.A.
  
		
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steven aatkinson wrote:

>>I suspect that it's not being maintained. ...  This problem is
>>
>   > discussed in my howto: Howtos-with-LinuxDoc.
>   > Are you interested in maintaining it?   It does need a maintainer.
>   > In my opinion, more tags should only be added if there's a strong need
>   > for them, since the main beauty of LinuxDoc is it's simplicity and
>   > minimal number of tags.  You could become the maintainer of the Debian
>   > package and then supply your revisions to other distributions too.  I
>   > think this is what sano did.
>   
>   I'm interested in seeing it maintained. Whether I have the time or skills to do it,
>   I'll have to reconsider July/August. The answer according to my personal data
>   transputer is 66.66% no.

The Debian bug tracking system has a number of old bugs listed so I think 
it is fair to state it is not actively maintained. If you decide to 
maintain it I hopesuggest you look over the list of existing bugs, some of 
which even have patches attached to them.

Regards,
    Stein Gjoen

Re linuxdoc-tools 

Stein Gjoen wrote:

>The Debian bug tracking system has a number of old bugs listed so I think 
> it is fair to state it is not actively maintained. If you decide to maintain it I 

> hopesuggest you look over the list of existing bugs, some of 
> which even have patches attached to them.

Re maintaining the linuxdoc-tools - I think I'm out of
my depth here. I'd love to see this software working
better, but I don't know perl, debian or autoconf,
and don't have much fondness for them. Perl I ~could~ learn.. it's just a language *cough*, but I've never 
got a handle on the gnu "configure" software
installation process (though this may not be important for maintaining linuxdoc-tools).

Hopefully we'll find a perl programmer to take it
on. If no-one does , and my lack of experience isn't too
much of a hurdle, perhaps I could do it sometime in the
future.

Steven.


		
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