DocBook XML export

[mark]

On 14 Jan 2004, at 5:58, Alexandre Enkerli wrote:

>> I'd like to hear some opinions about how DocBook exports might work 
>> from inside of Outliner.

> *Really* glad you're thinking about this.

me too

>
>> Just having a structured document isn't enough, you need all those 
>> special DocBook tags in there too.

> Well, columns work really well for attributes. Couldn't they work for 
> elements too?
> Otherwise, it could be something similar to the Notes pane only more 
> structured. Each row is included in an element and we don't 
> necessarily need to see this element all the time, so a hideable pane 
> would be nice.
> There's also the model used by most XML editors (just came across 
> jaxe.sf.net yesterday and it seems quite interesting). Have the tags 
> actually surround the content. In OO, they could be similar to 
> comments in Radio (and other Winer apps).

I'm assuming we are talking about OO3 (or higher) ? Without knowing 
what interface additions are going to be included, its hard to say how 
this could best be achieved.

One thing I am hoping to see in OO3 (and which was not categorically 
excluded when I asked "support") is additional views. Tinderbox has two 
views which I would like to see in OO: "Map View" (though this might be 
more suitable as an "export to OG" item and "Explorer View". This 
"Explorer View" is one which lends itself fairly well to viewing and 
working with XML. Might the following work ?

One innitially works with a file as a normal OOutline. When one is 
ready one selects "open in explorer view as a docbook file" (or 
similar). This renders the nodes (nodes become elements) of the outline 
as a hierachical list in a "sidebar" of the explorer view (maybe 
initially they just follow a number system like 1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1, 
1.3, 2 etc. or maybe you need to assign a column in the "original" 
ooutline to identify the "element name of the node" beforehand ?) The 
content of each element is rendered in a normal text view on the right. 
One can then assign Docbook tags to the nodes/elements in the 
"sidebar". A second column (an editable popup ?) in the "sidebar" could 
be used to add attributes to the elements.

Whaddya think ?

It requires the user to know how to initially build the OOutline file 
such that its structure will fit into the docbook DTD, but I don't see 
how you are going to get around this without building a fully fledged 
Docbook editor.

I hope this takes off and if shooting my half-baked idea down helps 
then take aim ladies and gentlemen please,

mark.