Re: [Firebird-docs] ATTN Darcy, and all: PDF rendering

[dso <ds...@sk...>]

Hello,

>>1. Chapter 1 - Basically, with Ventura a chapter system allows
> 
> But is it mandatory that a doc (a single PDF file) have at least one
> chapter? It's not the end of the world, but it looks a little silly to
> have a document with just a "Chapter One" and no other chapters, even
> though it is in itself complete. Oh well, if we can't change this, we
> can put the Docbuilding + Docwriting Howtos in one PDF (they already
> form one DocBook <book> together).

Actually the Chapter can be removed for single doc's no problem. But if 
we do go to a 'complete' book then the chapters are beneficial. In the 
separated Chapters I just need to create a 'chapterless' template. Easy 
enough.

>>4a. <sect1> Vertical Space - this is a preference issue, design wise
>>4b. <sect1> New Page - Looks good for websites, absolutely horrible
> 
> OK, agreed. The point is that the Docwriting Howto turned out a lot
> bigger than I had originally envisaged. Some of the sections look more
> like chapters. No problem as long as we have that extra vertical space
> before <sect1>'s (and a little less before <sect2>'s, etc.)

Can be done, I'm going make some modifications to the layout etc., and 
then put a copy on my website for you to review. We'll do the final 
adjustments as we go.

>>10. <sgmltag class="starttag"> - Fixed
>>11. <sgmltag class="genentity"> - Fixed
> Class endtag too, I suppose? Anyway it's the same procedure.

Yep, those all work.

>>21. Smiley's - In professional docs???
> Sure, why not? :-)
> 
> This was a doc for fellow (aspiring) docwriters. Tone is a little more
> familiar here and there.

OK, now I just need to see if Smiley's are supported in Ventura.

> Maybe the space got eaten because Ventura thinks there should't be a
> space before a colon? This has to be fixed, because there are also
> other situations where a space precedes a colon, e.g. in a C code
> fragment or in a ratio.

I think maintaining 'spaces' is going to be the hardest part of these 
doc's. Ventura supports formatting without problems i.e. cut and paste a 
text doc into Ventura and it will keep the tabs and spacing perfectly. 
Import XML and it doesn't see the spaces because it see the doc as a XML 
file and removes all spacing, then applies formating to the tags.

Anyway, like I said, worst case scenario requires a little hand editing 
prior to final publishing.

Darcy