Re: [Docutils-users] customize for literature book

[David G. <go...@py...>]

William Dode wrote:
> Am I in the good place ?

Yes, this is fine.  The docutils-develop list and Python's Doc-SIG list also
carry relevant discussions.

> Do you think reStructuredText could help us ?
>
> I develop in python so it's sure that i will use it for my own
> documentation. But what about non-developer users ?

Yes, reStructuredText could help you, but please realize that it's still
under development.  There are many rough edges and features that have yet to
be implemented (see <http://docutils.sf.net/spec/notes.html#to-do>).  As
long as the functionality you want is already implemented, non-developer use
is no problem.

If you're interested in sponsoring further development, I'm available.  See
my signature.

> If yes, i've some questions about customization :
> - where can i automatize the typography ? (like &nbsp; before : ; ?...)

What language are you publishing in?  In English we never put a space before
trailing punctuation.

In any case, unless convincing arguments appear, I don't think
reStructuredText will have any special character processing: no
"&nbsp;"-style character entities.  Docutils and reStructuredText use
Unicode internally and use Python's codec system for encoding and decoding
UTF-8, Latin-1, etc.  Simply insert a non-breaking space directly into your
source text, and tell Docutils what encoding you're using.

> - how can i write special caracters (tm, (c)...) ?

As above, insert the actual characters into your text.

In a recent Doc-SIG discussion, David Priest was asking to be able to use
XML character entities ("&nbsp;"-style).  I don't think that's appropriate
for reStructuredText, but he was unable to use UTF-8 encoded text files for
practical reasons, so he came up with an alternate scheme.  He will use a
"substitution table file" of this form::

    .. exclamation point:
    .. |excl| replace:: !

There are a couple of issues still to resolve.  See
<http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.documentation/418> for details.

> - how can i have a new type of paragraph (like a right-indented for
>   citation between title and text) : i begin to look at adding a
>   directive...

I can't say without seeing an example; can you provide one?  A directive may
be the correct option.

> - is interpreted text a way to customize ?

Yes, depending on what you want to do.  It's currently in development and
discussion.  Please provide examples if you want more specific answers.

> thanks for the answer and for the great works you did !

You're welcome.

-- David Goodger    http://starship.python.net/~goodger

Programmer/sysadmin for hire: http://starship.python.net/~goodger/cv