Re: Publishing tool ideas for W3C editors

Hello,

I'm glad to see that there's interest in the project
described below. I propose the following:

1) The XML and DOM groups converge on a common DTD for
   their specs (at least a common core). Eve has said that
   she has little time at the moment but is interested. Philippe,
   I propose that you and Eve coordinate on this.

2) Once we have that core format, we figure out how to map
   xhtml to it with an xslt style sheet. I suspect that
   some of the transformations will be quite lightweight 
   (e.g., transform the first H1 of the document into the 
   title element of the common format). We obviously need
   to document the conventions, ensure that available templates
   conform to them, etc.

   David Carlisle has volunteered some time in a few weeks and
   I would be happy to participate in that discussion. I'm happy
   to schedule a phone meeting, say the week of 14 August. For
   example, 15 August at 2pm ET. 

This would already be a good start. Enthusiastic volunteers
welcome,

 - Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/Templates,new

Ian Jacobs wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Philippe Le Hégaret and I are discussing what tools we can
> make available to W3C editors to make it easier to publish
> technical reports. Philippe has recently rewritten the production
> scripts for the DOM specification using the DOM (in java). Given
> a document that uses the DOM spec DTD [3], the java scripts (which
> still require some testing) produce a document that has a good
> chance of conforming to the W3C publication rules [1]. (The java
> scripts will be available on the public cvs server [2].)
> 
> Here's our idea:
> 
> 1) Provide tools to W3C editors to make publishing easier,
>    but don't require people to use them to conform to the
>    publication rules.
> 
> 2) Make available a standard XML format for W3C specs. To this
>    end, the DOM and XML WGs should strive to use a common XML
>    format.
> 
> 3) Given a document that conforms to the common format, offer
>    tools (e.g., xslt style sheets or java scripts) that will
>    generate a TR document. Philippe's scripts offer the following
>    functionalities:
> 
>      1) They generate a table of contents and sub-tables
>         of contents.
>      2) They generate/manage an index.
>      3) They manage a list of references and
>         links to those references from the document.
>      4) They generate/manage a glossary.
>      5) They can be used to generate HTML 4. Tidy can be used
>         to turn these documents into XHTML.
>      6) For the DOM, they manage interface definitions.
> 
> 4) Given a valid XHTML document that uses some predefined classes,
>    offer an xslt style sheet to convert the document to
>    the common format.
> 
> 5) Given a valid HTML 4 document, tidy can be used to create a
>    valid XHTML document.
> 
> In short, we would like people to be able to use the tools at
> various entry points. We would also like people to be able to
> use whatever tools they prefer to create their documents.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1) Would people find this suite of tools useful?
> 
> 2) Would people with expertise in xslt volunteer to help
>    create the xhtml->xml translation?
> 
> 3) Do people have specific requirements for the common format?
> 
> 4) How extensible should the common format be?
> 
> Any comments and suggestions are welcome.
> 
>   - Ian
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/Guide/pubrules
> [2] http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/
> [3] http://www.w3.org/DOM/Group/drafts/pubtext/spec.dtd
> 
> --
> Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
> Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
> Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Friday, 21 July 2000 19:27:11 UTC