What is the recommended toolchain for formatting XML DocBook? [closed]

Question

I've seen Best tools for working with DocBook XML documents, but my question is slightly different. Which is the currently recommended formatting toolchain - as opposed to editing tool - for XML DocBook?

In Eric Raymond's 'The Art of Unix Programming' from 2003 (an excellent book!), the suggestion is XML-FO (XML Formatting Objects), but I've since seen suggestions here that indicated that XML-FO is no longer under development (though I can no longer find that question on StackOverflow, so maybe it was erroneous).

Assume I'm primarily interested in Unix/Linux (including MacOS X), but I wouldn't automatically ignore Windows-only solutions.

Is Apache's FOP the best way to go? Are there any alternatives?

Answer 1

I've been doing some manual writing with DocBook, under cygwin, to produce One Page HTML, Many Pages HTML, CHM and PDF.

I installed the following:

1. The docbook stylesheets (xsl) repository.
2. xmllint, to test if the xml is correct.
3. xsltproc, to process the xml with the stylesheets.
4. Apache's fop, to produce PDF's.I make sure to add the installed folder to the PATH.
5. Microsoft's HTML Help Workshop, to produce CHM's. I make sure to add the installed folder to the PATH.

Edit: In the below code I'm using more than the 2 files. If someone wants a cleaned up version of the scripts and the folder structure, please contact me: guscarreno (squiggly/at) googlemail (period/dot) com

I then use a configure.in:

AC_INIT(Makefile.in)

FOP=fop.sh
HHC=hhc
XSLTPROC=xsltproc

AC_ARG_WITH(fop, [  --with-fop  Where to find Apache FOP],
[
    if test "x$withval" != "xno"; then
        FOP="$withval"
    fi
]
)
AC_PATH_PROG(FOP,  $FOP)

AC_ARG_WITH(hhc, [  --with-hhc  Where to find Microsoft Help Compiler],
[
    if test "x$withval" != "xno"; then
        HHC="$withval"
    fi
]
)
AC_PATH_PROG(HHC,  $HHC)

AC_ARG_WITH(xsltproc, [  --with-xsltproc  Where to find xsltproc],
[
    if test "x$withval" != "xno"; then
        XSLTPROC="$withval"
    fi
]
)
AC_PATH_PROG(XSLTPROC,  $XSLTPROC)

AC_SUBST(FOP)
AC_SUBST(HHC)
AC_SUBST(XSLTPROC)

HERE=`pwd`
AC_SUBST(HERE)
AC_OUTPUT(Makefile)

cat > config.nice <<EOT
#!/bin/sh
./configure \
    --with-fop='$FOP' \
    --with-hhc='$HHC' \
    --with-xsltproc='$XSLTPROC' \

EOT
chmod +x config.nice

and a Makefile.in:

FOP=@FOP@
HHC=@HHC@
XSLTPROC=@XSLTPROC@
HERE=@HERE@

# Subdirs that contain docs
DOCS=appendixes chapters reference 

XML_CATALOG_FILES=./build/docbook-xsl-1.71.0/catalog.xml
export XML_CATALOG_FILES

all:    entities.ent manual.xml html

clean:
@echo -e "\n=== Cleaning\n"
@-rm -f html/*.html html/HTML.manifest pdf/* chm/*.html chm/*.hhp chm/*.hhc chm/*.chm entities.ent .ent
@echo -e "Done.\n"

dist-clean:
@echo -e "\n=== Restoring defaults\n"
@-rm -rf .ent autom4te.cache config.* configure Makefile html/*.html html/HTML.manifest pdf/* chm/*.html chm/*.hhp chm/*.hhc chm/*.chm build/docbook-xsl-1.71.0
@echo -e "Done.\n"

entities.ent: ./build/mkentities.sh $(DOCS)
@echo -e "\n=== Creating entities\n"
@./build/mkentities.sh $(DOCS) > .ent
@if [ ! -f entities.ent ] || [ ! cmp entities.ent .ent ]; then mv .ent entities.ent ; fi
@echo -e "Done.\n"

# Build the docs in chm format

chm:    chm/htmlhelp.hpp
@echo -e "\n=== Creating CHM\n"
@echo logo.png >> chm/htmlhelp.hhp
@echo arrow.gif >> chm/htmlhelp.hhp
@-cd chm && "$(HHC)" htmlhelp.hhp
@echo -e "Done.\n"

chm/htmlhelp.hpp: entities.ent build/docbook-xsl manual.xml build/chm.xsl
@echo -e "\n=== Creating input for CHM\n"
@"$(XSLTPROC)" --output ./chm/index.html ./build/chm.xsl manual.xml

# Build the docs in HTML format

html: html/index.html

html/index.html: entities.ent build/docbook-xsl manual.xml build/html.xsl
@echo -e "\n=== Creating HTML\n"
@"$(XSLTPROC)" --output ./html/index.html ./build/html.xsl manual.xml
@echo -e "Done.\n"

# Build the docs in PDF format

pdf:    pdf/manual.fo
@echo -e "\n=== Creating PDF\n"
@"$(FOP)" ./pdf/manual.fo ./pdf/manual.pdf
@echo -e "Done.\n"

pdf/manual.fo: entities.ent build/docbook-xsl manual.xml build/pdf.xsl
@echo -e "\n=== Creating input for PDF\n"
@"$(XSLTPROC)" --output ./pdf/manual.fo ./build/pdf.xsl manual.xml

check: manual.xml
@echo -e "\n=== Checking correctness of manual\n"
@xmllint --valid --noout --postvalid manual.xml
@echo -e "Done.\n"

# need to touch the dir because the timestamp in the tarball
# is older than that of the tarball :)
build/docbook-xsl: build/docbook-xsl-1.71.0.tar.gz
@echo -e "\n=== Un-taring docbook-xsl\n"
@cd build && tar xzf docbook-xsl-1.71.0.tar.gz && touch docbook-xsl-1.71.0

to automate the production of the above mentioned file outputs.

I prefer to use a nix approach to the scripting just because the toolset is more easy to find and use, not to mention easier to chain.

Answer 2

We use XMLmind XmlEdit for editing and Maven's docbkx plugin to create output during our builds. For a set of good templates take a look at the ones Hibernate or Spring provide.

Answer 3

For HTML output, I use the Docbook XSL stylesheets with the XSLT processor xsltproc.

For PDF output, I use dblatex, which translates to LaTeX and then use pdflatex to compile it to PDF. (I used Jade, the DSSSL stylesheets and jadetex before.)

Answer 4

We use

• Serna XML Editor
• Eclipse (plain xml editing, mostly used by the technical people)
• own specific Eclipse plug-in (just for our release-notes)
• Maven docbkx plug-in
• Maven jar with specific corporate style sheet, based on the standard docbook style-sheets
• Maven plug-in for converting csv to DocBook table
• Maven plug-in for extracting BugZilla data and creating a DocBook section from it
• Hudson (to generate the PDF document(s))
• Nexus to deploy the created PDF documents

Some ideas we have:

Deploy with each product version not only the PDF, but also the original complete DocBook document (as we partly write the document and partly generate them). Saving the full DocBook document makes them independent for changes in the system setup in the future. Meaning, if the system changes, from which the content was extracted (or replaced by diff. systems) we would not be able to generate the exact content any more. Which could cause an issue, if we needed to re-release (with different style-sheet) the whole product ranche of manuals. Same as with the jars; these compiled Java classes are also placed in Nexus (you do not want to store them in your SCM); this we would also do with the generated DocBook document.

Update:

Fresh created a Maven HTML Cleaner Plug-in, which makes it possible to add DocBook content to a Maven Project Site (Beta version available). Feedback is welcome through the Open Discussion Forum.

Answer 5

The DocBook stylesheets, plus FOP, work well, but I finally decided to spring for RenderX, which covers the standard more thoroughly and has some nice extensions that the DocBook stylesheets take advantage of.

Bob Stayton's book, DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide, describes several alternate tool chains, including ones that work on Linux or Windows (almost surely MacOS, too, though I have not personally used a Mac).

Answer 6

A popular approach is to use DocBook XSL Stylesheets.