Re: [docbook] Is Docbook Assembly easier to process than standard Docbook?

["Bob Stayton" <bobs@sagehill.net>]

Hi Lech,

Finding the topic file you need to edit based on the content is a problem I once helped a client solve (they were using sections as modules).  We added a parameter to the stylesheet that turned on the display of element ids in the margin.  They would periodically generate a PDF that displayed the ids, use that as a reference to locate the content to be edited and its associated id, and their content management system let them fetch the modular file based on the id.

 

My hope is that XML editors will provide direct support for DocBook assemblies in the future.

 

Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
bobs@sagehill.net

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Lech Rzedzicki

To: docbook@lists.oasis-open.org

Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2012 7:12 AM

Subject: [docbook] Is Docbook Assembly easier to process than standard Docbook?

I'm sure there's good reasons for DB Assembly to be the way it is right now, but I need to understand those reasons.

If I need to read or modify, let's say the first para of a topic, I have to parse the <structure>, fetch the id from the the module, then parse the resources to fetch the URI of the actual file and finally fetch and parse the topic and grab the first para.
Had this been one big file, it'd simply be current-topic/para[1].

Is anyone else doing Component Content Management System which chunks the content, but leaves it up to the application to chunk it?
I find the whole split into topic/map a bit artificial, as typically even a topic is a sort of map of its content and very often superstructures like a chapter need to be treated as a single object.

What are your experiences and what are the best practices for the two scenarios described above:
1. Treating a sub-map or a map as a single object
2. Fetching/reusing a portion of the topic?

Regards,

Lech