makefaq / News: Recent posts

FYI, I have received a patch from someone who used makefaq and wanted to extend it to support XHTML 1.1. Given that, I will probably be rolling a makefaq version 2.6 in the next month or so. I may wait until python 2.4 comes out (current release target seems to be December 2004) just to run a sanity check against that, but it will be somewhere in here.

If anyone has anything they would like to contribute to that release (such as other translations or templates), please do let me know.... read more

makefaq 2.5 can now be downloaded either from here at SourceForge or at http://www.makefaq.org

This very minor update releases fixes a warning generated when makefaq 2.4 was used with python 2.3 regarding the lack of source code encoding specified in PEP263.

No new features were added. The release was purely to make it so that python 2.3 users will not see a warning. (And Leap Day seemed as good as any other day to fix it!)

makefaq release 2.4 primarily provides a function that allows your FAQ data file to be exported into DocBook XML where it can then be processed into PDF or other formats using the standard DocBook processing tools and XSLT stylesheets. This allows the FAQ itself to remain in the very simple data format of makefaq, while allowing the higher level of formatting possible through DocBook tools.

The release also provides a new command-line option, -N, to suppress numbering of the questions. There were a number of minor changes to the format of the program itself, including the movement of comments into docstrings.

FYI, if you are browsing the CVS repository or using a version of makefaq from CVS, I am *not* doing any active development on the HEAD of the CVS repository. That was where I was doing development on what was to become makefaq 3.0.

However, with the creation of 2.3, I created a branch called BRANCH_R_2_3 and that has been where I have been doing all my recent development, including what will now be version 2.4 with DocBook XML export support.... read more

I have now created a 'makefaq-announce' mailing list to which I will send announcements about new releases, updates and other information. If you would like to subscribe, please go to:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/makefaq-announce

As it is going to be a bit before I get the 3.0 release out, I decided to issue a 2.3 release with a few minor changes. The next release should be 3.0 with a new file format.... unless, of course, I decide to go off and build a Tkinter interface for it.

Note that I did create a branch in CVS (BRANCH_R_2_3) so that the 3.0 code is still in HEAD.

I have now started work on a version 3.0 that will
include support for reading in XML files that conform to the DTD specified at:
http://www.lodestar2.com/software/makefaq/makefaq-xml-1-0.dtd

This version will be a departure from all previous versions in that it will REQUIRE python 2.2 for the XML libraries that are part of it (python 2.2). All current and previous versions have worked with either python 1.5.x or 2.x.... read more

I recently realized that while makefaq v2.2 has been available on the home page of http://www.lodestar2.com/software/makefaq/ since July 2001, I had not uploaded that release to SF. I have now done so.

Somehow I missed posting the news here at the beginning of April when version 2.0 came out, but the new version 2.0 and 2.1 allows for the first time a multi-line data file format. It also supports localization so that "FAQ Revised" and "Table of Contents" will come out in languages other than English.

It's a significant upgrade and if you tried previous versions I would encourage you to try new one out.

In response to a user's question, I added a '-d' command-line option to allow for a delimiter in the data file other than the default pipe ('|') character. I also made some changes to the default header and footer files designed to encourage people to change those files and add appropriate contact information.

I still have not found the time to work on one of the multi-line data file implementations I have received. Hopefully, soon.

Right now the data file for makefaq is a text file where the question and answer are both on a single line. There's no question that it needs to be changed to some other type of multi-line format, but the question is what is the delimiter. Some people have suggested DocBook, some have suggested some type of variation of XML... I'm just curious to know what people think. Visit:

https://sourceforge.net/survey/survey.php?group_id=5013&survey_id=10566... read more

I have received several changes from various people since the version 0.4 release in February. Over the next few weeks I will be integrating the changes into the code.

The major changes fall into two areas:
- multiple-line answers allowed in data file
- internationalization support so that the help and other
program strings can appear in languages other than English

Please visit the CVS repository or contact me directly if you would like more information.