Re: [tlug] HTML app packager?

[Charles Muller <acmuller@example.com>]

Shawn wrote:

> What about docbook. xml?
> Once your xml files are in docbook format, you can easily transform it 
> into html (or pdf if you wanted to print the whole thing out).

Actually, transformation is not a problem--I've basically been using TEI
for several years now in combination with XSLT, which provides more of
the specific kinds of tags needed for classical literary documents than
Docbook. I understand the point of your suggestion though.
 
> We are not using searching in the manual I maintain using docbook, so I am 
> not so familiar with it but I know htmlhelp (one format for windows you 
> can generate from docbook xml) offers it OR there is javahelp (again 
> outputtable from docbook.xml) which offers searching too.  But neither of 
> which may be quite what you are looking for.

The main problem with HTMLhelp (besides its Windows-centrism) is that it
still doesn't allow for compilation of utf-8 encoded material in its
indexes. My stuff is multilingual to a degree that I can't go with
national code systems such as JIS and Big5.

>  One possibility would be to then go 
> with a java applet which could be distributed along with the html archive 
> and search the index which docbook would create if you tag it
> correctly.  

Yes, this is precisely the sort of thing I have in mind.

> Otherwise a simple "find in page" type search in javascript would seem 
> possible using either:
> 
> <indexterm> 
> --http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/library/linuxguides/docbook/indexterm.html
> <indexentry> -- 
> http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/library/linuxguides/docbook/indexentry.html
> 
> An alternative way might be to use <refentry>

These are very interesting leads, definitely the sort of direction I am
leaning toward.

Thanks much for the feedback.

Regards,

Chuck

---------------------------
Charles Muller  

Toyo Gakuen University
Faculty of Humanities  
1660 Hiregasaki, Nagareyama-shi
Chiba 270-0161 JAPAN

Web Site: Resources for East Asian Language and Thought
http://www.acmuller.net
<acmuller@example.com>