Re: Can someone explain SGML to me?

[Mark Galassi <rosalia cygnus com>]

Hi Todd,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner on your SGML/GNOME-docs
questions.

    Todd> I'm rewriting the FAQ from the ground up, and I need info on
    Todd> SGML.  How does one write SGML docs?  Do you just have to

That's a very good question.  The first thing to point out is that
there are a lot of different SGML document types (DTDs).  Do you mean
the DocBook DTD?  If so, DocBook (right now) does not have tags for
FAQs, although you can overload some of the existing tags for that.

If you mean the LinuxDoc DTD, then I can't help you (I don't know much
about it) except to say that it is being phased out in favor of
DocBook, and the LinuxDoc dudes are also addressing the FAQ
deficiency by lobbying to get DocBook modified.

    Todd> know the tags and fire up vi, or is there a wysiwig environ
    Todd> like lyx?  The former, right?

All three: vi will work, as will emacs with PSGML mode (quite
awesome), and I believe that lyx will handle LinuxDoc and FAQs, but it 
will not handle DocBook (yet).

    Todd> Which SGML toolset should people use?  The LDP's sgml-tools
    Todd> is linuxdoc- based, and so is worthless to us, since we're
    Todd> using DocBook, yes?

Almost: the LDP people are moving over to DocBook, and are basically
repackaging the Cygnus DocBook RPMs which I maintain.

I recommend you take a look at

	http://nis-www.lanl.gov/~rosalia/mydocs/docbook-intro.html
and
	ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/home/rosalia/

the latter (ftp) site has the RPMs for getting going with DocBook.

    Todd> Who "owns" the GNOME documentation system?  I.e., to whom
    Todd> can I point people who mail me with questions concerning
    Todd> writing documentation?

You can ask me.  Go ahead and ask on the list (since it's good to get
people excited about docs) unless there gets to be too much traffic
and people start complaining :-)