Read Me

skb v0.4 2010/07/21
-------------------
Create and maintain a repository for long-living documents

This package provides  macros that help  to build a  document repository for
long living  documents. It  focuses on  structure and  re-use of text, code,
figures etc. The basic concept  is to first separate structure  from content
(i.e. text about  a topic from  the structure it  is presented by)  and then
separating the  content from  the actual  published document,  thus enabling
easy re-use  of text  blocks in  different publications  (i.e. text  about a
protocol in a short article about this  protocol as well as in a book  about
many protocols); all without constantly copying or changing text. As a  side
effect, using the document  classes provided, it hides  a lot of LaTeX  from
someone who just wants to write articles and books. 

skb.sty v0.4            : the skb package
skbarticle.cls v0.4     : an article class based on memoir
skbbook.cls v0.4        : a book class based memoir
skbbeamer.cls v0.3      : a beamer class based on beamer v3.10
skblncsbeamer.cls v0.4  : a class for annotated beamer slides
skblncsppt.cls v0.4     : a class for annotated ppt slides

See for more information the pdf documentation of this package.
The history of the package is documented in /source/history.txt



Status: Alpha, Experimental
---------------------------

This package, while being  used by me and  some early adaptors, is  still in
alpha status, thus experimental. we are using it to maintain a large  amount
of documents  (articles, lecture  notes, some  books, project documentation,
open source  documentation) and  various different  platforms (Windows  with
MikTeX, several Linux systems  and OSX). Since we  eat our own dog  food, we
are fairly confident that the package  does it's job well. However, this  is
not  written by a LaTeX expert, I am still  learning, and the package  might
or  might  not  be usefull  for you  and might  or might  not work  on your
machine.   We   are    very   interested   in   comments,   critic,  advice,
recommendations, complaints; as long as you try to keep them contructive ;)



Contents and Installation
-------------------------

Your LaTeX  distribution might  have the  skb package  already installed  or
might install it automatically when you are trying to use it the first time.
If you have  to manually install  it, copy the  files listed below  to their
respective  locations   within  your   LaTeX  distribution   (TSD  compliant
structure). Once you  copied all files,  please don't forget  to update your
filename database. To use  the skb package, you  probably only need to  copy
the files from the /run folder

[archive root]
 |
 |- doc
 |   `- skb.pdf           : [your tex distribution]/doc/latex/skb
 |- source
 |   |- skb.dtx           : [your tex distribution]/source/latex/skb
 |   `- skb.ins           : [your tex distribution]/source/latex/skb
 `- run
     |- skb.sty           : [your tex distribution]/tex/latex/skb
     |- skbarticle.cls    : [your tex distribution]/tex/latex/skb
     |- skbbeamer.cls     : [your tex distribution]/tex/latex/skb
     |- skbbook.cls       : [your tex distribution]/tex/latex/skb
     |- skblncsbeamer.cls : [your tex distribution]/tex/latex/skb
     `- skblncsppt.cls    : [your tex distribution]/tex/latex/skb

The   archive   contains  pregenerated   files   (in  the   /doc   and  /run
folders).  You  can  reproduce  them from  the  source  (/source)  using the
docstrip command and the ltxdoc package usting the following commands:

  $ cd source
  $ latex skb.ins
  $ pdflatex skb.dtx

This will create the style file (skb.sty) and the class files (*.cls) plus a
pdf  with the  documentation in  the /source  directory. You  need to   have
docstrip, ltxdoc  and doc  installed, which  should be  already part of your
LaTeX distribution. Parts of the documentation are in the folders  'publish'
and 'repository' and you will need to install the SKB before you can  create
the documentation (in  other words, the  SKB package uses  itself to compile
the PDF document)



Configuration
-------------

You will need to change the root  directory of the SKB in skb.sty (there  is
currently  no  other  way  to  configure  the  package).  To  do  that, edit
/run/skb.sty  and  change  the  value  of  \skb@dirRoot  to  were  ever you
document repository is located.



Where do I get it?
------------------

SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/latex-skb
CTAN: [not yet submitted]



License
-------
%% Copyright (c) 2010 Sven van der Meer <sven@vandermeer.de>
%%
%% This work may be distributed  and/or modified under the conditions  of the
%% LaTeX Project Public  License, either version  1.3 of this  license or (at
%% your option) any later version.
%% The latest version of this license is in
%%    <http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt>
%% and version 1.3  or later is  part of all  distributions of LaTeX  version
%% 2005/12/01 or later.
%%
%% This work has the LPPL maintenance status `author-maintained'.
%%
%% The Current Maintainer of this work is
%%    Sven van der Meer <sven@vandermeer.de>
%%
%% This software is  provided 'as is',  without warranty of  any kind, either
%% expressed  or  implied,  including,  but  not  limited  to,  the   implied
%% warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.
%%
%% This work consists of all files in source/MANIFEST.TXT