[ZDP] sdf/simpledoc and the CoolFAQ

[Pavlos Christoforou]

On Fri, 14 May 1999, Martijn Faassen wrote:

> Simon Michael wrote:
> > 
> > Just came across this, haven't seen it mentioned here:
> > 
> > http://www.mincom.com/mtr/sdf/
> [snip]
> 
> Hm, I just looked at it, though not yet in detail. It seems nice, but
> I'm not sure if it's suitable. The nice thing about StructuredText is
> that it's text content without virtually *any* non textual information
> in the sources. This limits it, but it makes it very handy. SDF seems to
> be higher level, and might complicate our system that way.
> 
> What do you all think?
> 

It is simple true enough, but not as simple as structuredtext, and it does
require adobe reader and latex and SGMLtools and and ... to produce some
output formats. Since we are not interested in starting a publishing house
I believe what we *really* need is PDF support for structured text, or at
least a python based HTML to PDF converter that supports enough HTML to
render structured text nicely. This means a mini-document formating system
written in python. If we neglect hyphenation and other complicated issues
then it will be a decent project.

Such a beast will be required for both the CoolFAQ and the CoolDOC and for
other cute dynamic PDF generation purposes.

It has to be simple, support a small subset of formating elements and
it should produce nice output.

A possible implementation follows ... 

just kidding but just a little bit  ;-)


Pavlos