Re: [docbook-apps] WYSIWYG Editor for docbook

[Warren Young <warren@etr-usa.com>]

On 8/12/2012 5:10 PM, Paul Taylor wrote:
> On 12/08/2012 23:41, Richard Hamilton wrote:
> > There are a bunch of very good visual editors out there that will
> > handle DocBook. The one I know best is Oxygen
> > (http://www.oxygenxml.com/), which works very well with DocBook.
> Goodness, this product is well overpriced

If you're looking at it as a DocBook word processor, sure.  But oXygen 
does quite a bit more than that.  Check out the feature matrix:

	http://www.oxygenxml.com/feature_matrix.html

oXygen Author is priced appropriately for what it is: a piece of a high 
end publication system.

Not that I'm trying to arm-twist you into buying it.  I, too, would be 
happy to see a plain "word processor for DocBook."

That is, something without a lot of formatting power, which simply 
happened to use .dbx to store its data.  The main difference between 
such a program and a "normal" word processor would flow from DocBook's 
content vs. presentation separation: it would do a lot more to force you 
toward styles rather than ad hoc formatting, and you wouldn't have the 
option of things like free-floating layout frames.  I think to get a low 
price like you're looking for, you'd also have to give up on the ability 
to edit stylesheets.

There's kind of a slippery slope here, the sort that caused the desktop 
databases most PC users had in the 80s to disappear:

 o People keep pushing the tool to do vastly more complicated things
   than the tool was designed for.

 o The developers add features to address the demand.

 o The tool becomes too complicated for normals to understand so
   demand from that quarter drops off.

 o The developer raises the prices and shoots for the high end market.

What you get is a world where people believe Excel is a database, and 
{insert favorite text editor here} is a DocBook editor.