? to Docbook [was Re: kubuntu ubuntuguide version]

[Abdullah Ramazanoglu]

Sean Wheller dedi ki:
  --8<--

> Start here and do take a read on the subject:
> http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/ConvertTroffToDocbook
> http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/ConvertWikiToDocbook
> http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/WritingDocbookWithOpenOffice
> 
> The last one, I tried it and found I did not like. Perhaps you will, then
> please document it.

Thanks for the pointers, Sean. They're just what I've been looking for.
I've read all but only installed and tried OO.o based one as I believe
OO.o is the way to go. BTW it didn't work for me, and I've added
installation steps to the wiki. Here is how I see it:

Other tools are converting from specific formats to docbook/xml. Even if
they're technically good at what they do (I don't know), they're still
strategically ill-positioned. There are more formats than these tools
combined can handle, and there's a need to use a different tool for each
different input format.

OTOH, OO.o (even if currently lacking mature toolset) is strategically good
positioned:

1. OO.o is a very reasonable WYSIWYG authoring tool as a stand alone
editor. So it's quite acceptable tool for document creation in the first
place.

2. It is the most comprehensive "AnyFormat" to XML conversion tool I know
of. Wiki(s) and troff/man and many other formats can be easily converted
to HTML without loosing much meta-info, and HTML can be imported by OO.o.
Beyond that, not only HTML, but you give OO.o just about any mainstream
document format and it spits out XML. A perfect input plugin for the
larger task of Any-To-DocBook conversion.

3. It's old native format is XML (presumably close to DocBook) and it's new
native format is *OASIS/XML*. AFAIK DocBook/xml is also an *OASIS/XML*.
What!? They're (almost) the same! If they're not the same, as I suspect,
then I don't really understand why. Why .oot is not DocBook/xml, or why
DocBook/xml is not .oot? Perhaps there might be a good chance of them
merging in the future. Even if we ignore the merging probability, it
should be very seamless, technically and theoretically, to do automated
conversions between OO.o (2.x) and DocBook. (I'm ignoring OO.o v1.x as it
will have been probably phased out by the time what I talk about is
realized, if ever.)

4. Yes, ooo2dbk is too premature (or maybe it's just me :) to use
seriously. But it's simply a small (50K sized deb) product, and this is a
technical issue. However, the strategy it represents seems to be the best
to me. So I wonder: Why OOo v-2 didn't adopt directly DocBook as the
native v2/.oot format? Can't they adopt it in the future? At least, can't
they provide input/output filters for DocBook/xml? They're the experts on
the subject, and it should be easier for them than anyone to provide full
featured DocBook/xml filters for OOo. What's more, their filters would be
fully implementing the rich features of its OOo2/xml, and also would be
closely tracking any additions to OOo2/xml. The whole ooo2dbk deb package
takes just about 50K and it allegedly does a good job of OOo (1.x) to
DocBook conversion. So, it should be a fairly simple job for OOo devs to
accomplish.

Just imagine this: Authors can write freely in OOo and output is directly
imported into DocBook (I'd wish it *is* DocBook, or DocBook *is* .oot).
Want to write with another tool in another format, or found some gem
hidden somewhere on the Net? No problem. Just feed it into OOo and it
tosses out the XML .oot version which is then directly imported into
DocBook. Super good! (I hope it's not "too" good. :)

Of course, all this assuming that OOo2/xml is *not* the same as
DocBook/xml. Otherwise, the wheel is already invented! Let's whizz
around...

I was almost forgetting the caveat :) that I'm pretty ignorant on XML
details, including DocBook and OOo versions. So I might be missing
something ridiculously fundamental.

Best regards
-- 
Abdullah Ramazanoglu
aramazan ÄT myrealbox D0T cöm