General comments and suggestions

[Kim Lester <kim@dfusion.com.au>]

Some thoughts, bear with me if I am saying something
silly obvious or already done. I've been away for a awhile and
can't read all the old posts (now if we had a meta search... :-) )

	1) The LDP site needs a simple "by topic" index for the HOWTOs.
	   Eg:

		Hardware
		   CPU
			Alpha
		   Laptops
			4mb
		   CDs
		      CDROM
		   Disks
		      IDE
		      ZIP
		      SCSI
		   Modems
			Cable
		   Network
			...
		   Mice
			Busmouse
		   Graphics
			3dfx

		Linux (System)
		   Booting
			Book Disk
			Boot Prompt
		   Network
			Routing
			AX-25
			...
		   Graphics

		Applications
		   AI
		   Benchmarks

		Languages
		   Assembler
		   C++...

		Human Languages
		   Belgian
		 

		Here there are several top levels
		there could be one or two more. I'm happy to do this
		manually but I think it would be better if we
		used the meta-data abilities of SGML/XML to add
		a couple of entities like <keyword> (I defer to those
		who know better) to each document.
		It would only take a couple of hours to do this for all
		the doucments and it would be done for all time.
		Then all we do is write a simple perl script (etc)
		(eg using associative arrays). We could do a full
		permuted index quite simply (any maybe that should be
		an option) but for the main web page we might just
		limit it to a few well chosen categories.


	2) 

	Hmmm bedtime, 2) etc will have to wait...


	Question: I'm getting old :-) and would like a "nice"
		SGML environment - ie one that deals in SGML DocBook
		structures but has some WYSI_Approx_WYG to make
		the structure stand out rather than the syntax.
		Lyx sounds like it partially fits the requirements
		but it appears not to do DocBook properly (???)

		The thought of emacs doesn't wildly enthuse me.
		Should I be sitting down and writing a GUI XML/Docbook
		editor for us all, or should I go and *shock horror* buy
		one for myself or is there something in the works
		already that someone knows of ?

		Comments appreciated.


	regards

		Kim

	P.S. M$ Word has an SGML output translator called SGML
		 Author 1.2. It isn't cheap (around USD500) but I
		thought some might like to know. No I don't like
		word but a lot of tech docs are written in it because
		that's what corporate IT depts impose on tech depts.

		I might be getting at least an eval copy of this.
		If someone wants any .doc -> .sgml conversions
		(eg Security guide) let me know and I'll see what I
		can do.
		
-- 
	Kim Lester

	Senior Engineer,
	Datafusion Systems Pty Ltd
	http://www.dfusion.com.au/


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