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Hi devs, |
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I've recently (too late ;-) read that we (Chris White?) had proposed the |
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GuideXML |
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editor project for GSoC. I have some ideas to describe here, and (possibly) |
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willing to act as a co-mentor for this challenge. |
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It is interesting that we've already approached this task at Russian |
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doc translation project (as entire Gentoo is suffering from the lack of such |
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tools): |
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We had to choose the basic platform for wysiwyg editing (among some |
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existing tools), and had thought of the following: |
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1. The doc editor should be as similar to a regular word processor, as |
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possible. |
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2. It should have some spell checking tools included. |
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3. It should be internationalized. |
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4. There should be a bunch of compatible editors not to be ever stuck on |
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single tool. |
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5. Gentoo project itself is not much about wysisyg editing tool, so we |
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shoudn't |
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do it from scratch. |
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Hopefully, we've found many of open and closed source tools that can |
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accopplish this task. |
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Here's some of them we think suitable, all can be easily adapted to GuideXML |
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by templates: |
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|
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1. OpenOffice.org (xslt) |
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2. Vex (css) |
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3. Serna (xslt) |
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4. XMLmind (custom) |
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(I think this list is still very incomplete) |
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|
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The main problem is completely different (as we could see): |
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all the WYSIWYG tools seem to break initial internal document format making |
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it completely |
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unusable for CVS storage and DIFF (although we could switch to XML diff, I |
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don't really think |
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it's yet reasonable for next 1-2 years). |
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So, we have proposed to split the entire task into these two: |
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Step A. |
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Make a 'TidyGuide' XSLT that can format (or restore format of) any valid |
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GuideXML document |
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after processing by WYSIWYG editor, and just before commit. |
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XSL was chosen as a platform-independent technology (you can apply it on |
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file save in almost any |
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editor, or even in CVS itself). |
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This way, we overcome the main problem of existing WYSIWYG editors. |
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Step B. |
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Prepate templates for any editors you like -- there is no problem as we |
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haven't to deal with |
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internal formatting anymore. |
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So, although this effort was actually started within Russian Documentation |
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Project (unfinished yet), |
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I think it makes sense to bring it to Gentoo mainstream. |
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|
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You can look at current projects' repo at |
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https://svn.shadanakar.org/rugentoo/ru/guidexml/ |
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(comments to code are still in Russian, but the code itself is |
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self-descriptive) |
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|
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Screenshots of WYSIWYG GuideXML in Serna and XMLMind are available at |
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http://www.chumakov.ru/gentoo/technology/xml-editors.html (in Russian, too, |
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but not a problem |
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as the pictures are self-descriptive, too), |
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those for vex project--at |
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https://confluence.concord.org/display/CCTR/Gentoo+GuideXML+with+Vex |
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If it's interesting, I could convert all these comments into English (and |
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translate existing TidyGuide |
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software requirements specification, too) and contrubute all that code to |
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Gentoo in a couple of days. |
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So, what do you think about all this? Is is interesting enough? Could I |
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become a co-mentor for GuideXML |
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wysiwyg project? |
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|
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-- |
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Alexey Chumakov |
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Gentoo Russian Documentation Lead |
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achumakov@g.o |
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|
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-- |
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gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |
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