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Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: DocBook Editor?
> I agree with you. But we need an XML word processor for >editing DocBook documents; some call them "Document editor"s and >that's what we really need. Wait, who's "we"? The DocBook community, in general? >I know vi, emacs, name_your_editor_here rock and I use them >myself, but wouldn't it be cool to have a nice word processor-like >XML DocBook editor? Um... no. Just kidding. ^_^ The thing is that it'd be lots of work to really do it "right". In order not to loose nearly all of the potential benefits of using XML DocBook, in the first place, a DocBook editor would basically have to go to great lengths to translate user input into the most minimal edits of the source files. Entity references would have to be preserved, though not visually, but the user would have to be queried, when editing across an entity boundary, whether it intends the edit to modify the entity, or to expand the entity and edit that, etc. One would also need to be able to insert and remove entity references. I think it wouldn't even be worthwhile to bother with an internal subset editor, but then how to deal with overrides of definitions, in marked sections, of parameter entity references used in definitions of general entities that the user is trying to modify... what a headache! Perhaps an alternate approach would be to write an entity-oriented editor, instead of trying to treat the entire document as a single, uniform object. For entities referenced within the entity you're editing, you could see the value, but not modify it, until you switch to editing that entity. But, I doubt anyone is going to write a tool that gets it right. If they do, how likely do you think it is that there won't be at least a few substantial usability issues (such as international support, rendering quality, vi command-mode support, etc.)? On top of it all, when users are faced with a presentational view of their content, they're more likely to write in a presentational fashion, as opposed to a structural/semantic one. Still, there are just some people who don't need to use entities, and won't edit raw XML. Also, I guess using DocBook as an open interchange format, instead of a proprietary one (i.e. MS Word), or a weaker one (i.e HTML), isn't an awful idea. So, maybe even a sub-optimal DocBook editor has a place in the world, though I worry about people trying to use it when it's really not the right tool for the job. Matt _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
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