lubuntu-wiki-docs team mailing list archive

["Ali Linx (amjjawad)" <amjjawad@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sub Teams

Under the wiki-docs team we are working on three areas that are linked in
terms of what they contain, but use different methods to deliver that
information:

Wiki <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/Documentation> : The area
you are on now.

Offline Docs<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/DocumentationTeam/Offline_Docs> :
To be included on the CD for help with or without internet access.

Manual <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/DocumentationTeam/Manual> : A
document that can be viewed on line, or downloaded for future reference.


Count me in for the first team. That I can do 100%

For other sub-teams, I can't promise but will jump in only if I have enough
time.


Thanks!


On Sat, Jun 1, 2013 at 10:34 AM, Phill Whiteside <PhillW@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Right people, can we have a call on who wants what of the three
> projects[1]? Jason is away fora  week, so I'd really like this sorted for
> when he gets back as we have to give the devs some sort of idea of what
> will happen.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Phill.
> 1. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/DocumentationTeam#Sub_Teams
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Kevin Godby <godbyk@xxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 1 June 2013 06:26
> Subject: Re: Lubuntu Manual - Getting Started With Lubuntu
> To: Phill Whiteside <PhillW@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
>
> Hello, Phill.
>
> I skimmed through the thread on the lubuntu-users list.  I'm the
> primary LaTeX guy on the Ubuntu Manual project. If you're interested
> in using our toolchain to built a Lubuntu manual I'm happy to help out
> with that or answer any questions.
>
> I'm not too clear on the goal or desired form of the Lubuntu manual,
> so here are some general notes.
>
> LaTeX is a great typesetting system for generating PDFs and printed
> documents. It's fairly useless when it comes to generating any other
> formats, though.  If you only want to have a PDF or printed book, then
> using LaTeX for the source format will serve you just fine.  If you
> want to generate ebooks, web sites, or other formats (in addition to
> or instead of the PDF or printed book), then I would recommend
> *against* using LaTeX as your primary source format. LaTeX is quite
> difficult to parse and there aren't any good parsers out there to
> convert LaTeX reliably to other formats.
>
> The Ubuntu docs project uses Mallard as its source format.  Mallard is
> an XML-based markup language.  The Mallard files are used in Yelp (the
> desktop documentation viewer) and are converted to HTML for the
> help.ubuntu.com website.  Mallard is a decent format for writing
> technical documentation as it was designed with that specific goal in
> mind.  Since Mallard is XML-based, it can be parsed easily by many
> tools and converted to other formats.
>
> The Ubuntu docs project used to use Docbook as its source format and
> the other derivative documentation projects and the Ubuntu server
> guide still use Docbook.  Docbook, like Mallard, is XML-based. It's
> considerably more complex than Mallard but you can stick to a smaller
> subset of its markup if you like.  As with Mallard, Docbook can be
> parsed by a number of tools and converted to other formats fairly
> easily.
>
> To generate the Ubuntu server guide PDF, the Docbook sources are run
> through Apache FOP instead of LaTeX.  I'm not all that familiar with
> Apache FOP.  I do generally prefer LaTeX's PDFs to those that FOP
> generates, however. I think the output looks a lot nicer.  This may
> simply be because the default stylesheets used by Apache FOP aren't
> very good, though.
>
> To sum up my recommendations:
>
> If you're looking to generate topic-based help similar to the current
> documentation on help.ubuntu.com, then I recommend starting with
> Mallard markup. Mallard is designed specifically for this purpose.
> Mallard doesn't appear to be suitable for books, however.
>
> If you're looking to generate *only* a printed book or PDF, then you
> can start with LaTeX as the Ubuntu Manual project has.  LaTeX is not
> easily converted to other formats but is specifically designed to
> typeset printed books.
>
> If you're looking to generate a printed book and an ebook and a
> website, then I'd suggest starting with Docbook. While Docbook is more
> complicated than Mallard (there are a lot more tags to learn), it's
> also more flexible and is geared toward generating longer-form
> documents like books.  Since it's XML-based, it can be converted
> fairly easily to other formats such as HTML and even LaTeX.
>
> Incidentally, if you do choose to go the Docbook → LaTeX → PDF route,
> I would suggest tweaking the LaTeX to improve it's formatting as
> Docbook doesn't specify all the nitpicky typographical tweaks that
> LaTeX can take advantage of.  (But that's just me being a bit of a
> perfectionist.)
>
> Please feel free to forward this email to the lubuntu-users list and
> anyone else you like. And I'm happy to answer any questions about
> LaTeX, the Ubuntu Manual tools and processes, or other markup
> languages (though I'm not quite as familiar with them).
>
> —Kevin Godby
>
>
>
> --
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/phillw
>
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>


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*amjjawad <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/amjjawad/>*
*Start Ubuntu<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/CommunicationsTeam/WOWLubuntu/StartUbuntu>
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