RE: [docbook-apps] Tools to make DocBook easier

[Gerard Nicol <gerard.nicol@gazillabyte.com>]

Would anybody be interested in building a docbook VM environment with:

1. Docbook
2. Git
3. Build for man pages, PDF, HTML output etc.

I have experience setting thise things up, but need help with the docbook
customizations to make it all look nice.

My thinking is that there seems to be agreement that the default docbook
output looks pretty ordinary. My position is that people should be able to
download a VM image to produce good looking output out of the box, then if
they want, they can make changes to something that looks good, rather than
something that looks ordinary.

Any interest? If there is I'd be happy to share my skills in return for
working with others who can show me some things.

Gerard

-----Original Message-----
From: Eduard Tibet [mailto:eduard.tibet@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 8:53 AM
To: Kallauch, Benjamin (EEIN) <benjamin.kallauch2@volkswagen.de>
Cc: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] Tools to make DocBook easier

Benjamin,

as for CMS...

I (with help of my java-minded colleagues) setup custom build of Apache
Cocoon 2.2 as a XML Publishing Framework some years ago. This build is live
now within company and is used for internal company documentation.

It deals quite good with:
- Docbook files (we used v. 4.5).
- Conditional profiling (2-passes).
- pdf generation with FOP
- dynamically generation of documentation web site, including actual docs
version, trunk, etc.
- adaptive content, based on device.
- some more stuff...

However, some things are out of scope of Cocoon and are made at preprocess
level (shell scripts):
- SVN updates/checkouts (svn used for storing xml and images).
java-based svn-kit is much slower, than grab xmls from disk.
- XIncludes;
- building targetdb;
- some custom optimization for olinks [1]

I want personally to thank Bob for his insight on using Cocoon as an
automation technology in his book "DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide, Fourth
Edition", I read in the beginning of 2008.

[1] https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/201011/msg00073.html