Re: [docbook-apps] Producing Open Source Software

[Bram Vogelaar <mylists@teambla.com>]

Hello Richard

PhD seems like an interesting project to use to render docbook  
documentation.
do you know generic PhD is at the moment. or are the themes very PHP  
documentation specific?

bram
On 6 Mar 2009, at 10:14, Richard Quadling wrote:

> 2009/3/5 DavePawson <davep@dpawson.co.uk>:
>> Eric Johnson wrote:
>>>
>>> One of the big hurdles for advocating the use of DocBook in  
>>> “public” open
>>> source projects is that there are plenty of wiki based  
>>> alternatives that are
>>> free, have short learning curves, and do not require “building”.
>>
>> True. There are always easier alternatives.
>> These still require project effort to generate the documentation  
>> though?
>
> Hi.
>
> As a contributor to the PHP documentation, I have to say that the
> tools we use have come a LONG way.
>
> We use DocBook 5 with a few tiny additions.
>
> We currently have a 2 step process to build the documentation, both
> are written in PHP.
>
> The first pulls all the documentation into a single XML file. The
> second processes the big xml file into HTML, PHP pages, CHM, PDF.
>
> There is some work on making this a single process.
>
> The current English documentation consists of around 12,500 files on
> around 26Mb.
>
> Creating the entire range of output (plain HTML for standalone unfussy
> local reading, PHP pages for the PHP.net sites/mirrors, HTML for the
> CHM build process) takes around 10 mins on my slow desktop machine,
> whilst running in idle mode (windows).
>
> The tool to convert the large XML to the resultant formats is called  
> PhD.
>
> We have new people coming onboard to translate the manual using these
> tools on a fairly regular basis.
>
> PhD is written in PHP and can be amended to create any style you like.
> It is very extendable.
>
> Admittedly, getting the XML right is sometimes a bit of an issue for
> the newbies, but they learn. Very quickly. Simply because their
> commits fail to build. And are 2 steps produce all the output needed
> to fix it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Richard Quadling.
>
> http://wiki.php.net/doc/phd/install
>
>> That, I think, was the focus of Karens message.
>>
>>> Developers can easily contribute to the pool of documentation. The  
>>> wiki
>>> approach does have some drawbacks
>>
>> Yes, of course. Most alternatives have some pro's and con's.
>>
>> As Karen notes, documentation, in docbook, for docbook ....
>> is weird anyway :-)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> regards
>>
>> --
>> Dave Pawson
>> XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
>> http://www.dpawson.co.uk
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> -----
> Richard Quadling
> Zend Certified Engineer : http://zend.com/zce.php?c=ZEND002498&r=213474731
> "Standing on the shoulders of some very clever giants!"
>
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