Re: [docbook] Best wiki engines or tools for wiki-to-docbook conversions?

[COUTHURES Alain <alain.couthures@agencexml.com>]

Hello Jim,
> The project's current documentation is written in docbook, but as part 
> of this effort, we want to make it easier for new contributors to 
> write documentation without overwhelming them with the details of docbook.
Yes, it's important for new contributors and my current project 
(XSLTForms) has now a documentation in wiki format even though I would 
prefer an XML notation such as Docbook.
> With that in mind, in your experience, what open-source wiki engines 
> (if any) provide the best output to docbook? If you can't think of 
> any, what tools may provide the best means of converting wiki text to 
> docbook?
I would seriously consider using an XSLT stylesheet. With just adding a 
document element, even XSLT 1.0 can parse text in wiki format. It might 
sound weird but I have already parsed CSS stylesheets and XPath 
expressions with XSLT 1.0 only. Today, XSLT 1.0 is well supported by 
almost any environment, at client-side and at server-side.

My current project is an XForms implementation at client-side 
(http://www.agencexml.com/xsltforms). I have already thought of a wiki 
editor being integrated in a form in place of a textarea control and an 
extension function could, even, locally perform the XSLT transformation 
to DocBook notation before submitting it !

What do you think of this ?

Best regards,

Alain Couthures
<agenceXML>
Bordeaux, France