Re: [docbook] XML Editors

["Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com>]

On Sat, 26 Apr 2003, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 25, 2003 at 01:16:08PM -0500,
>  JABakken@dstsystems.com <JABakken@dstsystems.com> wrote 
>  a message of 13 lines which said:
> 
> > maybe recommend a better freeware xml editor?
> 
> I use <ulink url="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">Emacs</ulink>,
> together with its SGML mode <ulink
> url="http://www.lysator.liu.se/projects/about_psgml.html">psgml</ulink>.

having been through the "which editor should i use" wars myself, 
i finally settled on a really simple and efficient solution.

first, i developed a simple XML transform from abbreviations
to actual docbook tags, so i can type using

<p>
 <pl>		# programlisting
 <em>		# emphasis

etc, etc.  not only is it fast, but i can look at the actual
DB file and it isn't overwhelmingly verbose.  once i'm done,
my XML variation on an identity transform turns it into 
real docbook.  (i refer to the above as "pidgin docbook".)

in addition, it's trivial to extend emacs' outline mode to
understand outline levels based on this:

<c>		# chapter
 <se>		# first-level section
  <se>		# second-level section

so i can expand and collapse the pidgin docbook file at will.

  the only drawback is that it really forces me to keep an
entire document in a single file, so there's little point
in my trying to do anything with modular docbook.

  other than that, i found my solution.

rday