dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi there,

It does not look too bad for a first pass. :)

Basically, I tried a number of ways to get the manual in this format, but
the easiest I think was simply copying and pasting chunks of text into XXE
(a docbook editor). I just could not get any of the exporters to work very
well (YAWC, XMLSpy were the ones I tried). This initial conversion took
about 30 minutes for this doucment, so it was not too painful.

As you say, there are essentially no style information at the moment. I
guess this would need to be handled by the XSL with appropriate tags in the
source document.
This should be able to be added as we go along.

Best,
Jason



On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> Just had a first glance at section one of the manual.  It looks very nice
> but it is unstructured word processed text - ie. everything is styled
> "default".  So there are no shortcuts to be had - conversion to docbook and
> creation of structure for the document will be  manual.  I guess the others
> will be the same.  This will be a bit painful but will add considerable
> value to the documentation.
>
> Regards
> Bob
>
> 2009/9/11 Ola Hodne Titlestad <olatitle@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> The user manual developed in India is on word format, have a look here:
>> http://folk.uio.no/knutst/pub/usermanual/
>>
>> Which is linked from the front page of hisp.info (and should be linked
>> from dhis2.com as well, but it is not at the moment).
>>
>>
>> Ola Hodne Titlestad |Technical Officer|
>> Health Metrics Network (HMN) | World Health Organization
>> Avenue Appia 20 |1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland | Email: titlestado@xxxxxxx|Tel:
>> +41 788216897
>> Website: www.healthmetricsnetwork.org
>>
>> Better Information. Better Decisions. Better Health.
>>
>>
>> 2009/9/11 Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx>
>>
>>> Hi Jason
>>>
>>>
>>> I will have a look at odf2docbook.  It is just implemented as an xslt
>>> filter in openoffice so I should be able to get it out.
>>>
>>> If there are word documents with  reasonable structure (highly
>>> unlikely!!) then this might be a shortcut to getting a first pass going.
>>> Otherwise, from word save as xhtml (I presume it can do that) and transform
>>> that to docbook.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Bob
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2009/9/11 Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Aha, there is a user manual, on yet another server! Never knew about
>>>> this one. :)
>>>>
>>>> Wow, there really is a lot of material out there, and it is going to be
>>>> a monumental task to get into into some type of "proper" form.
>>>>
>>>> Well, I am willing to try and coordinate the initial pass at getting the
>>>> documentation into DocBook, but it will have to be a team effort. This was
>>>> one of my arguments for moving towards this format, as it should allow
>>>> collaborative work. This will have to be done in my "spare" time, but I am
>>>> willing to give it a try, assuming that everyone else is on board, and this
>>>> is the direction the community wants to go. It will be a lot of work, but it
>>>> seems that the long-term advantages are abundant.
>>>>
>>>> I would still be interested to hear what the technical writer to be
>>>> engaged by HMN has to say, as we definitely do not want to jump off a cliff
>>>> here.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2009/9/11 Knut Staring <knutst@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>
>>>> 2009/9/11 Lars Helge Øverland <larshelge@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The intrinsic problem with formats such as DockuWiki is that they are
>>>>>>> pretty much a one way street. It is an easy format to use, but not entirely
>>>>>>> easy to transform into something else. Pure XML formats such as DocBook
>>>>>>> separate entirely the content away from the presentation. Want Word? No
>>>>>>> problem. How about PDF? Can do. How about an integrated help system with the
>>>>>>> application? Should not be an issue as you have pure XML to work with.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I want to emphasize this argument: We have decided earlier to have an
>>>>>> integrated dynamic help function in dhis2, and we already have a simple
>>>>>> solution implemented which we can build on. Still, syncronizing the content
>>>>>> of this help function with the general documentation effort would be
>>>>>> desirable (and necessary). Going for an xml format such as docbook and
>>>>>> locating the help file inside the repo will solve this issue. Choosing a
>>>>>> wiki will demand lots of manual work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Ola and I agree with going for DocBook - so please don't hesitate,
>>>>> Jason. That said, we should look into ways of making it easy for people to
>>>>> contribute. An initial approach would be for contributors to send their
>>>>> material to you, and you make sure it fits in DocBook.
>>>>>
>>>>> The changes with release 2.0.2 does probably mean a new manual should
>>>>> be created. Some material from the previous user manual may still be
>>>>> suitable:
>>>>> http://folk.uio.no/knutst/pub/usermanual/
>>>>>
>>>>> Knut
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Lars
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs<https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-devs>
>>>>>> Post to     : dhis2-devs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs<https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-devs>
>>>>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Knut Staring
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs<https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-devs>
>>>> Post to     : dhis2-devs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs<https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-devs>
>>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs<https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-devs>
>>> Post to     : dhis2-devs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-devs<https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-devs>
>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>
>>>
>>
>