[OSGeo-Edu] Re: Edu_discuss Digest, Vol 13, Issue 17

Maili Page smailiidaho at yahoo.com
Mon Jan 28 18:37:03 EST 2008


Hi Jorge,
   
     I'm still working on the procedure. It's not overly difficult, I just want to make sure it's perfect. I'll definitely have it done before noon tomorrow and send it to you.
   
  Thanks, Maili

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Today's Topics:

1. Re: Edu_discuss Digest, Vol 13, Issue 15 (Maili Page)
2. Metadata for OSGeo Educational Content (Landon Blake)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:33:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Maili Page 
Subject: [OSGeo-Edu] Re: Edu_discuss Digest, Vol 13, Issue 15
To: edu_discuss at lists.osgeo.org, "Sasha \(Alexander\) Stopanov"

Message-ID: <535743.31535.qm at web32209.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi Jorge,

I'm currently writing a detailed procedure on the start to finish process of creating pdf, and html docs using docbook and xmlmind. I'll send it to you this afternoon when I've completed it. 

Thanks!

Maili Page
Umass Graduate research assistant



Message: 1
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:21:39 +0100
From: "Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas" 
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Edu] Comments and Questions on Docbook
To: "Landon Blake" 
Cc: OSGeo-edu 
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi Landon

2008/1/22, Landon Blake :
>
> I took some time to look over Docbook last night. This included skimming a
> Docbook crash course and messing around with XMLMind.
>
>
>
> XMLMind definitely seems to be the most fully featured Docbook editor, and
> would be a good choice for authors not familiar with XML.
>

After trying some XML authoring tools, even XMLMind and oXygen 9, I
have to admit that new XML editor of Eclipse 3.3 (europa) is the
nicest editor I've found as it does everything I need (included spell
checking...).

oXygen is really good (Jeroen told me to try it). The "Author" mode
would be really really comfortable to use if it wouldn't be SO slow.

>
>
> I personally found it a bit awkward, and figured I would be more comfortable
> working in a text editor. I'd probably still write the content in OpenOffice
> and would then cut and paste to a XML template file. My comfort with the raw
> text editor may be a result of my programming background.
>
>
>
> I think Docbook would be a workable solution, but I think some templates
> would be key. (For example, we could set up a template for Free GIS Book
> chapters or for OSGeo Journal Articles.)
>

In the Spanish Free GIS Book group we decided LaTeX as editing tool
for many reasons, and I think for that kind of content is the best. I
see Docbook better for more technical content like user and developer
docs. As you know, there is no better tool for writing equations than
LaTeX at this moment.

Not sure how to deal with Docbook and MathML.....

>
>
> I'd like to check out the PDF format generated from Docbook. Can anyone get
> me started with that conversion as quickly as possible? What conversion tool
> would you recommend?

I'm using Apache FOP, but it's difficult to customize the results but
not impossible. You will have to deal with XSLT....

Docbook XSL complete guide is a good place to start to play with XSL
customization layer:

http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html

Cheers
-- 
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
Ingeniero en Geodesia y Cartografía
http://www.geomaticblog.net
http://www.prodevelop.es


------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:30:28 +0100
From: "Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas" 
Subject: Re: FW: [OSGeo-Edu] Subversion strategy questions
To: "Landon Blake" 
Cc: OSGeo-edu 
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

2008/1/23, Landon Blake :
> At a minimum it looks like I would need to complete the following steps
> to perform a conversion:
>
> Install and learn how to use an XSLT Stylesheet Processor.
> Import the Docbook DTD into the processor.
> Import the conversion stylesheet into the processor.
> Run the conversion in the processor.
>
> This isn't exactly a one-click task, but perhaps it could be made into
> one.
>
> I wonder how one would control things like margin width and font style
> when generating PDF documentation from Docbook. Is anyone familiar with
> how this works in the conversion process?
>

Hi Landon again ;)

It's mainly in Spanish, but maybe you find useful the article I'm
writing for the Girona Meeting about OSGeo Spanish LC. It's in the
OSGeo SVN.

https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/community/presentations/20080303-Girona/OSGeo_Spanish/


You'll find an ant build file for linux systems (I'm working on a
Debian box) so you only need to install the proper packages (xalan,
fop, jai, docbook-xml, docbook-xsl) and run ant to generate the HTML
or the PDF.

Sorry, the README is also in Spanish :S

Of course you can always use the old DSSL stylesheets and OpenJade....

Cheers
-- 
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
Ingeniero en Geodesia y Cartografía
http://www.geomaticblog.net
http://www.prodevelop.es


------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:31:36 +0100
From: "Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas" 
Subject: Re: FW: [OSGeo-Edu] Subversion strategy questions
To: OSGeo-edu 
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

2008/1/23, Landon Blake :
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Landon Blake
> Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 9:22 AM
> To: 'Frank Warmerdam'
> Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Edu] Subversion strategy questions
>
> Frank Wammerdam wrote:
>
> "On the whole DocBook issue - we tried using DocBook for a while for
> MapServer docs and ended up abandoning it because installing and getting
> to understand DocBook tools was too hard for many potential
> contributors."
>
> I also identified this as the major challenge when I looked at Docbook.
> I was all full of steam for the format until I started reading about
> what was necessary to convert the format in to PDF. It didn't look like
> a process for the faint of heart.
>
> At a minimum it looks like I would need to complete the following steps
> to perform a conversion:
>
> Install and learn how to use an XSLT Stylesheet Processor.
> Import the Docbook DTD into the processor.
> Import the conversion stylesheet into the processor.
> Run the conversion in the processor.
>
> This isn't exactly a one-click task, but perhaps it could be made into
> one.
>
> I wonder how one would control things like margin width and font style
> when generating PDF documentation from Docbook. Is anyone familiar with
> how this works in the conversion process?


Hi Landon again ;)

It's mainly in Spanish, but maybe you find useful the article I'm
writing for the Girona Meeting about OSGeo Spanish LC. It's in the
OSGeo SVN.

https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/community/presentations/20080303-Girona/OSGeo_Spanish/


You'll find an ant build file for linux systems (I'm working on a
Debian box) so you only need to install the proper packages (xalan,
fop, jai, docbook-xml, docbook-xsl) and run ant to generate the HTML
or the PDF.

Sorry, the README is also in Spanish :S

Of course you can always use the old DSSL stylesheets and OpenJade....

Cheers

-- 
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
Ingeniero en Geodesia y Cartografía
http://www.geomaticblog.net
http://www.prodevelop.es


------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:29:49 +0100
From: Tim Michelsen 
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Edu] Comments and Questions on Docbook
Cc: OSGeo-edu 
Message-ID: <479A46BD.2010203 at gmx-topmail.de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

> In the Spanish Free GIS Book group we decided LaTeX as editing tool
> for many reasons, and I think for that kind of content is the best. I
> see Docbook better for more technical content like user and developer
> docs. As you know, there is no better tool for writing equations than
> LaTeX at this moment.
Again another reason for using LyX, the friendly frontend to LaTeX.

It makes life with LaTeX a lot easier and could also speed it's adoption 
in the OSGEO-Edu community.

Kind regards,
Timmie


------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:56:10 +0100
From: Lorenzo Becchi 
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Edu] Why not use the wiki? My reasons... let me
know if I am off in my thinking
To: Charlie Schweik 
Cc: OSGeo-edu 
Message-ID: <479B662A.6040602 at ominiverdi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed



Charlie Schweik wrote:
>
> 1) How easy it is to find modules of interest to you... e.g., 
>
> I think we need a database driven search system. I'm not convinced the
> wiki is right for this, especially if there are other pages that are not
> educational content that might be returned on a search.
> 

we can make a dedicated one easily.

>
> 2) How easy it is to derive new works and keep track of author
> contributions
>
> The wiki system of course keeps a history. But you wouldn't want the
> "production" education module being edited. I suppose the way we'd have
> to do this is have two copies on the wiki, one that is a locked down
> current version and the second being an open edit "next release"
> version. 
> 

you can lock pages without creating two different Wikis, it would be a 
mess (IMO).
>
> 3) Updating wiki pages sometimes can be a little painful.
> 

that's true.
even merging contents from different formats is a pain. More over if 
you're not using a concurrency system (as wiki is).


ciao
Lorenzo


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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:47:20 -0800
From: "Landon Blake" 
Subject: [OSGeo-Edu] Metadata for OSGeo Educational Content
To: "OSGeo-edu" 
Message-ID:
<0D544207876CDA428F17DD7EA448C192AD8BCF at bailey.DOMAIN.KSNINC.PVT>
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