Re: [docbook] making macros

[Steven Cogorno <Steven.Cogorno@Sun.COM>]

On Apr 22, 2006, at 8:49 AM, Chuck Robey wrote:

> Steven Cogorno wrote:
>
>> Chuck,
>>
>> When you say "macros", I think what you are talking about is  
>> elements.
>>
>> There are several good DocBook guides available. If you want to  
>> see  some examples from Sun, you can download some open source  
>> documents  from the Solaris doc set here http://dlc.sun.com/osol/ 
>> docs/downloads/ current/
>>
>> These documents should help you understand the general structure  
>> of  DocBook.
>
> Sorry it took me a bit to reply, I wanted to check out your  
> reference.  I think, then, you meant that theose files serve zas  
> xml examples, right?  Because I don't have a Solaris system here,  
> and three wasn't any xml files with them, so I couldn't actually  
> use any tool (like mozilla) to display them ... unless I'm really  
> showing my innocence here.


The URL got munged -- there's a space between downloads and current.   
The correct URL is: http://dlc.sun.com/osol/docs/downloads/current

Download the tar file and untar it.  You'll be able to view the files  
with any text editor.


> 1) is it possible that I might be right here, that a set of macros  
> might be one workable method (one possible way to ease the writing  
> of Docbook docs using editors that AREN'T customized for xml), and,  
> if so,

You can't do that.  There's no facility for creating "macros" that  
group elements together.  You need to include the entire element  
structure.  If you are using SGML, which is not commonly used  
anymore, there is some flexibility for omitting tags.  The parser can  
infer when a new element starts or ends as long as the context is  
unambiguous.

XML parsers cannot do this.

Most people use GUI editors because these tools are designed to  
facilitate inserting elements and making sure that content parses  
correctly.


Steven Cogorno
Sun Microsystems