ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Benjamin Humphrey <humphreybc@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

After fiddling around with docbook today trying to transfer across the
current stuff from the .odt file, I'm thinking it's going to be a bit too
complex for our needs. It's mainly just the HTML aspect that's a pain in the
bum - even just trying to do the contents and setting up lists with bullet
points is very time consuming.

I think a good compromise between the complicated nature of docbook (which
most of us will have to learn from scratch - and those who aren't fluent
with HTML will find it very hard) and .odt (which doesn't let us merge very
well) is just plain text.

I think what I will do is put everything into plain text, with a different
file for each chapter and a proper directory structure. We'll forget about
formatting until well after the alpha, and once we have all the content in
one place on the main branch, one person can be assigned to formatting and
have their own branch. They'll be in charge of taking the plain text,
pasting it into an .odt file and formatting. The proposals put forward by
them will be checked by the rest of the team, and we can decide on a
detailed style specification for them to follow. Easy!

As for images, this could come after formatting. Putting images into HTML
and getting them all lined up is going to be a pain, another reason why we
aren't going to use docbook.

All of this will have to be discussed in the meeting on Saturday. For now,
I'll put all the .odt content into some plain text files and upload them to
main, as well as creating some more branches for formatting and images.

I'm pretty sure this will work!

-- 
Benjamin Humphrey

humphreybc@xxxxxxxxx
www.interesting.co.nz
www.benjaminhumphreyphotography.com