Hi Philip, *I am posting this message to the zope list for wider distribution. I am struggling with the issues you raise regarding one base format for all outputs. I look forward to the experiences of you and others. -Bob OConnor bob@rocnet.com -----Original Message----- From: Philip Aylesworth <zopelist@regalint.com> To: zdp@zope.org Date: Thursday, April 01, 1999 9:47 AM I am wondering if DocBook is still being considered for the ZDP. Since it was first discussed here I have done some research and have decided to try it for some of our own documentation. The learning curve looks steep but the benefits seem many. The important ones that I see are: * One source for Web, paper, PDF, and future formats. * Does not become obsolete like Word processor formats. (How many of us have documents that we can't or are too much trouble to read because they were written on an Apple II or a Commodore 64 in some program that you will never find now.) I guess HTML and structured text have this advantage, too. * Searching can be very powerful because the markup includes meaning rather that formatting instructions. So it would be possible to look for the definition of "external method" rather than all mentions of it. * DocBook is being rewritten in XML (a subset of SGML) so its future looks bright! Some good sources of information that I have found are: http://nwalsh.com/docbook/ - he is writing a book for O'Reilley to be published in the spring and also provided as open source http://nis-www.lanl.gov/~rosalia/mydocs/docbook-intro/docbook-intro.html - gives an introduction to what docbook is and how to use it. Pretty good, even though there are pieces that haven't been written yet. Explains what SGML, XML, DTD, docbook, Stylesheets, etc are and their relationships. http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ - the docbook home page I think the sooner a good standard is chosen the better. Get the learning out of the way and start producing useful, long-lasting docs. If some people don't want to use docbook maybe some of use would be willing to format other people's text with docbook tags. Phil A