[Plplot-cvs] SF.net SVN: plplot:[12496] trunk/doc/docbook/NEWS

[<ai...@us...>]

Revision: 12496
          http://sourceforge.net/p/plplot/code/12496
Author:   airwin
Date:     2013-08-24 22:36:57 +0000 (Sat, 24 Aug 2013)
Log Message:
-----------
Substantial update (including some history that has not been mentioned
before as well as recent events) of news for PLplot's documentation
project.

Modified Paths:
--------------
    trunk/doc/docbook/NEWS

Modified: trunk/doc/docbook/NEWS
===================================================================
--- trunk/doc/docbook/NEWS	2013-08-24 05:34:58 UTC (rev 12495)
+++ trunk/doc/docbook/NEWS	2013-08-24 22:36:57 UTC (rev 12496)
@@ -1,9 +1,50 @@
-This file gives an overview of changes to the cvs of the plplot
-documentation project. For some background about that project see README.
-Alan W. Irwin (AWI) and Rafael Laboissiere (RL) have been the principal
-contributors to this project so far.
+This file gives an overview of changes to the form (not content) of
+the PLplot documentation project. For some background about that
+project see README.  Alan W. Irwin (AWI), Rafael Laboissiere (RL), and
+Andrew Ross (AR) have been the principal contributors to this project
+so far.
 
-2001 February 8: (Just prior to release of 5.0.2) After those fateful words,
+2013-08-24: AWI implemented using XML/XSL backend tools to generate
+our HTML and print (dvi, PostScript, and PDF) documentation results.
+Use of the old SGML/DSSSL backend
+tools for this task is now deprecated and will be removed
+(probably in the next release cycle).  For more details on this
+change see README.developers.
+
+2007-03-30: AWI converted the whole PLplot project (including its
+documentation source tree) from CVS to subversion.  The conversion
+included all of our CVS history (commit messages, tags, and branches)
+in the new subversion repository.
+
+2006-11-04: RL retired from working on PLplot development including
+the documentation project.
+
+2006-07-28: AR and AWI started implementing support for the
+documentation build using our CMake-based build system which was just
+being developed at that time for all of PLplot as a replacement for
+our previous autotools-based build system.  This overall project (and
+especially the documentation build part of this project) went fairly
+quickly thanks to years of effort on RL's part improving the
+autotools-based build system so that is was modular, (fairly) easy to
+understand, and implemented accurate dependencies.
+
+2004-04-29: RL moved the build system from using in-house docbook2x
+version 0.7.0 to upstream docbook2x version 0.8.2 for generating the
+info form of our documentation.
+
+2003-03-12: RL implemented onsgmls validation of our DocBook source
+files.
+
+2003-02-17: RL enforced the use of openjade (as opposed to the
+deprecated jade) as an SGM/DSSSL backend tool.
+
+2003-02-12: RL integrated the special autotools build of the
+documentation into the overall autotools build of PLplot (which
+historically became available much later than the special autotools
+build of the documentation that RL originally implemented).
+
+2001 February 8: (Just prior to release of 5.0.2) After the fateful words:
+"this marks the end of AWI's work on the API documentation",
 AWI worked harder than ever on documentation (some of it with an API
 component).  A large source of the additional documentation was all the
 files in the doc directory which were from the 1994 latex effort or even
@@ -19,6 +60,15 @@
 part of the document (including the Bibliography and all the API chapters)
 was put at the back of the document.
 
+2000 December 04: RL finished the XML man backend.
+
+2000 November 30: RL implemented the XML/XSL info backend.  The html and
+print backends continue to be SGML/DSSSL.
+
+2000 November 17: RL finished conversion of DocBook SGML to DocBook XML.
+This change did not affect the backend tools which were still SGML/DSSSL
+at this stage.
+
 2000 November 15: AWI finished documenting the previously undocumented API
 functions by lifting the comments from the code source.  Those comments
 usually did not include anything about the meaning of the function

This was sent by the SourceForge.net collaborative development platform, the world's largest Open Source development site.