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Re: Re: linuxdoc to docbook migration
- From: Douglas du Boulay <ddb at R3401 dot rlem dot titech dot ac dot jp>
- To: docbook at lists dot oasis-open dot org
- Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 11:28:22 +0900 (JST)
- Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: Re: linuxdoc to docbook migration
> / Douglas du Boulay <ddb@R3401.rlem.titech.ac.jp> was heard to say:
> | (1) The control file for the program caters for a huge variety of
> | alternative behaviour. A very large number of default options
> | are built into the program and these often have a redundant "command argument"
> | which forces the required behaviour. In the original linuxdoc document I used
> | the <sf> serif font tag to identify such default command arguments.
> | I am hoping there will be a more apropriate docbook alternative to highlight
> | user commands which are defaults.
>
> Can you provide a little more context? I'm not sure what sort of
> commands you mean.
An XTAL example of mine. There is a subprogram ADDREF which works
with irel, frel or f2rl data. "frel" is the default data type so the two commands
ADDREF
and
ADDREF frel
work identically.
I would like a <command> notation that reflects that "frel" is a
default/redundant/built-in option, which could ultimately be rendered in some
special font/face/colour/type.
A unix man page example. The command
enscript -1 ....
creates a postscript file from a text file with 1 column per page.
The option "-1" is redundant, being the default (between -1, -2 ... .
But is there a <command> tag wich denotes "-1" as the default optional argument?
>
> | (2) (i) to get html superscripts and subscripts for both footnotes, table
>
> For footnotes, you should switch to the <footnote> element that will provide
> the marks for you automatically.
That would look and work much better I'm sure :-)
>
> | footnotes (e.g. [<sup>1</sup>]) and mathematical notation
> | (e.g. [F<sup>2<sup>]), I abused the linuxdoc.dtd <f></f> notation.
> | (remapped as [])
>
> For mathematics, it's a little harder. If all you need are sub and
> superscripts, you can use subscript and superscript.
>
> | (ii) I also had to abuse the [] notation to get greek symbols in
> | the body of the text e.g. [α] .
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by [] notation.
Sorry I mean the <f></f> inline formula notation - (remapped as [])
Items originally denoted as [F<sup>2<sup>] are not strictly equations or formulae,
but are still mathematical entities in the text. So just replacing it with
F<superscript>2</superscript> is technically incorrect because if this were
to go to print in book form -at some point in the future,
the "F" should be in some mathematical italic font.
To change it to "F<superscript>2</superscript>" I have lost information.
To go to 20 lines of MathML markup for each instance seems an incredible
amount of overkill.
What to do? what to do? Is there a half way house somewhere?
Some temporary <inline-partial-formula> placeholder to enable complete
conversion to MathML at some point in the future, while rendering as italic
text in the present?
What is the absolute minimum amount of <inline-equation>.. info needed to
get an italic superscript text representation for such a simple notation?
And are there any problems with just dropping the odd iso-entity α
into the body of the text (I'm probably wrong but I don't thing greek
mathematical characters get italicised in general)?
>
> Ah. Yes. There is a lot of math. Hmm...historically, DocBook hasn't
> allowed text for math (we were waiting for someone to standardize math
> markup :-). But a lot of your equations appear to be greek letters,
> sub and superscripts, and a few other symbols. No reason why that
> couldn't be text. This adds weight to the argument in favor of adding
> text as an alternative in inline equations and equations.
>
> Be seeing you,
> norm
How do the "professionals" deal with this? Has Docbook never been used by
O'Reilly to publish scientific texts? I thought that was the whole point?
Thanks again for your help
Doug (in puzzlement)