page on context and XML has moved

page on context and XML has moved

[Paul Tremblay]

I had originally put up a web article on page layout, ConTeXt, and XML.
As I said in my original email, the location of that webpage was only
temporary. 

The new address of the webpage is:

http://getfo.sourceforge.net/context_xml/index.html

The webpage is far from finished. I plan to add many more sections and
edit some of the existing ones. Just glancing over the pages, I see many
typos. 

In a similar matter, I had originally started this documentation on the
wikki. Can I now remove those pages? (I realize I probably don't need
permisssion, but I don't want to remove a page and then have the wikki
administrator put it back up.) The page on the wikki is out of date and
incorrect in many instances. 

Also, someone on this email list was nice enough to include a link to
the yahoo page. Could that person update the link, when he gets a
chance? 

Thanks

Paul

-- 

************************
*Paul Tremblay         *
*phthenry@iglou.com    *
************************

Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Patrick Gundlach]

Hello Paul,


> In a similar matter, I had originally started this documentation on the
> wikki. Can I now remove those pages? (I realize I probably don't need
> permisssion, but I don't want to remove a page and then have the wikki
> administrator put it back up.) 

You can delete any contents and if you put a good reason there, I (as
the administrator) or the others (as the more active watchers) would
not restore the contents unless there is a good reason.

But I have to say that I feel a bit sorry about your decision of
moving your pages to somewhere else. At the time before the wiki
existed there were (besides the documentation at PRAGMA ADE) several
web pages with some content (with very valuable information). But the
ConTeXt users didn't know about these pages (except for those reading
the mailinglist carefully). That is why I have started
contextgarden.net: to put all relevant documentation in one place.
Links have a tendency of dying. And the contents behind the links are
often outdated, because things (especially in the ConTeXt world)
change quickly. And I would not be surprised if this happens to your
page, too. And your information is too valuable to get lost or
unuseful. I'd suggest to keep the information at the wiki the next
time and/or write a myway and put the source and pdf on garden. 

But thank you for sharing your experience anyway.


Patrick
-- 
ConTeXt wiki: http://contextgarden.net

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Paul Tremblay]

On Sun, Apr 03, 2005 at 10:13:22AM +0200, Patrick Gundlach wrote:
> 
> But I have to say that I feel a bit sorry about your decision of
> moving your pages to somewhere else. At the time before the wiki
> existed there were (besides the documentation at PRAGMA ADE) several
> web pages with some content (with very valuable information). But the
> ConTeXt users didn't know about these pages (except for those reading
> the mailinglist carefully). That is why I have started
> contextgarden.net: to put all relevant documentation in one place.
> Links have a tendency of dying. And the contents behind the links are
> often outdated, because things (especially in the ConTeXt world)
> change quickly. And I would not be surprised if this happens to your
> page, too. And your information is too valuable to get lost or
> unuseful. I'd suggest to keep the information at the wiki the next
> time and/or write a myway and put the source and pdf on garden. 
> 

I agree with your point. In addition, the wiki pages offer the
opportunity for others to give valuable feedback, easily, without having
to post an email message. I am really going to miss having this
feedback, since it helps me correct both small mistakes and major
misconceptions in my documents.

My decision was based on practicality, however. You can see already that
my documents are very complicated, with many graphics and pieces of
example code. I will be constantly changing the pages as I correct
mistakes and learn more. I write my documents in XML and generate the
HTML files from the XML. This allows me to automatically generate a TOC,
keep my links fresh, and generate a detailed index. (I hope to get
around to creating an index later.) I run a script to generate the html.
I then use rsync to update my files at sourceforge.net. You can imagine
how much more difficult it would be to do this with the wiki. Updating
changes might take me 5 minutes through sourceforge. It would take me
maybe a half an hour if I used the wiki, and even longer as my pages
continue to grow. 

However, that doesn't stop me from creating a myway. (I assume a myway
is a ConText document coupled with a PDF file.) I'll try to do this as
soon as I have time. 

Thanks for your feedback

Paul

-- 

************************
*Paul Tremblay         *
*phthenry@iglou.com    *
************************

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Maurice Diamantini]

Le 3 avr. 05, à 11:41, Paul Tremblay a écrit :

> On Sun, Apr 03, 2005 at 10:13:22AM +0200, Patrick Gundlach wrote:
>>
>> ... At the time before the wiki
>> existed there were (besides the documentation at PRAGMA ADE) several
>> web pages with some content ... But the
>> ConTeXt users didn't know about these pages ... That is why I have 
>> started
>> contextgarden.net...
>
> ... My decision was based on practicality, .. It would take me
> maybe a half an hour if I used the wiki, and even longer as my pages
> continue to grow...

You could maintain a micro-page on the wiki which just allows
users to find your great document. The aim is for anybody to easely find
your document from the wiki.
The problem is to not forgot to update the wiki if you change the
location of your main page!

Thank you for your tutorial!

-- Maurice Diamantini

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[h h extern]

Maurice Diamantini (free) wrote:
> 
> Le 3 avr. 05, à 11:41, Paul Tremblay a écrit :
> 
>> On Sun, Apr 03, 2005 at 10:13:22AM +0200, Patrick Gundlach wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> ... At the time before the wiki
>>> existed there were (besides the documentation at PRAGMA ADE) several
>>> web pages with some content ... But the
>>> ConTeXt users didn't know about these pages ... That is why I have 
>>> started
>>> contextgarden.net...
>>
>>
>> ... My decision was based on practicality, .. It would take me
>> maybe a half an hour if I used the wiki, and even longer as my pages
>> continue to grow...
> 
> 
> You could maintain a micro-page on the wiki which just allows
> users to find your great document. The aim is for anybody to easely find
> your document from the wiki.
> The problem is to not forgot to update the wiki if you change the
> location of your main page!

this makes much sense, something like a summary + pointers

another benefit is that users who search the wiki can hit that page and find 
your additional pages

Hans


-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
      tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Patrick Gundlach]

Hello Paul,

okay, your workflow really makes putting the document on the wiki
impractical, thanks for answering.


[...]

> However, that doesn't stop me from creating a myway. (I assume a myway
> is a ConText document coupled with a PDF file.) I'll try to do this as
> soon as I have time. 

Your assumption is correct. See also

http://contextgarden.net/My_Way

Regards,

  Patrick

PS: Maurice, great suggestion on putting a kind of abstract/mini doc
on the wiki and a link.
-- 
ConTeXt wiki: http://contextgarden.net

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Paul Tremblay]

On Sun, Apr 03, 2005 at 11:03:53PM +0200, Patrick Gundlach wrote:
> 
> Hello Paul,
> 
> okay, your workflow really makes putting the document on the wiki
> impractical, thanks for answering.
> 
> 
> [...]
> 
> > However, that doesn't stop me from creating a myway. (I assume a myway
> > is a ConText document coupled with a PDF file.) I'll try to do this as
> > soon as I have time. 
> 
> Your assumption is correct. See also
> 
> http://contextgarden.net/My_Way
> 
> Regards,
> 
>   Patrick
> 
> PS: Maurice, great suggestion on putting a kind of abstract/mini doc
> on the wiki and a link.
> -- 

Yes, I agree that this is a good solution. One thing I could do is
create an index/toc that is in wiki format every time I produce my
documents. Then I can post the index/toc to the wiki page. It might take
me a little time to get to this (I am still trying to created documents
for many basic ConTeXt things), but I will aim to do this.

Paul

-- 

************************
*Paul Tremblay         *
*phthenry@iglou.com    *
************************

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Maurice Diamantini]

Le 3 avr. 05, à 21:36, h h extern a écrit :

>> You could maintain a micro-page on the wiki which just allows
>> users to find your great document. The aim is for anybody to easely 
>> find
>> your document from the wiki.
>> The problem is to not forgot to update the wiki if you change the
>> location of your main page!
>
> this makes much sense, something like a summary + pointers

Perhaps, better than creating some bilion of pages with almost
nothing in it, wouldn't it be better to add the link in an existing
relating page?

I think : http://contextgarden.net/Layout

Also, the problem of maintaining "life" links is quite real.
In that above page, the link
"XML ConTeXt site"... doesnt seem to point anywere!?

-- Maurice Diamantini

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Piotr Kopszak]

On Sun, Apr 03, 2005 at 06:05:40PM -0400, Paul Tremblay wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 03, 2005 at 11:03:53PM +0200, Patrick Gundlach wrote:
>[...]

I just looked at the webpage you mentioned and TeXML resources. If
I'm not mistaken it seems it was conceived for LaTeX. Does it
really make sense in context of ConTeXt? I'm afraid having a language
whose available reference does not even mention ConTeXt only adds up to the
existing TeX mess rather than makes it richer. At least the subset
which makes use of ConTeXt  should be called differently. Sorry for my
ignorance. These are just first impressions after having a quick look
at the idea.

Piotr


-- 
   Piotr Kopszak, Ph.D.          
   Polish Art Gallery, National Museum in Warsaw    
   ----------------------------->    http://kopszak.mnw.art.pl/
   http://www.magnatune.com/artists/altri_stromenti

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Paul Tremblay]

On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 02:31:04PM +0200, Piotr Kopszak wrote:
> > On Sun, Apr 03, 2005 at 11:03:53PM +0200, Patrick Gundlach wrote:
> >[...]
> 
> I just looked at the webpage you mentioned and TeXML resources. If
> I'm not mistaken it seems it was conceived for LaTeX. Does it
> really make sense in context of ConTeXt? I'm afraid having a language
> whose available reference does not even mention ConTeXt only adds up to the
> existing TeX mess rather than makes it richer. At least the subset
> which makes use of ConTeXt  should be called differently. Sorry for my
> ignorance. These are just first impressions after having a quick look
> at the idea.
> 

It is true that originally this was designed just for LaTeX. But I
became a developer and changed the code so that it will work under
ConTeXt. I even provided a script that will convert TeXML directly from
XML to PDF or other print formats. The name of this script is texml_con.
It is only available on CVS right now, but I should make it available as
a package sometime later today.

I will have to aske the administrator of the sourceforge site to update
the webpage so that it mentions ConTeXt as well. 

I provide myriads of examples on the webpages in TeXML format. Running
the TeXML script on any of these codes will change the documents to
valid ConTeXt. 

Paul

-- 

************************
*Paul Tremblay         *
*phthenry@iglou.com    *
************************

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Piotr Kopszak]

On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 01:09:07PM -0400, Paul Tremblay wrote:
> 
> It is true that originally this was designed just for LaTeX. But I
> became a developer and changed the code so that it will work under
> ConTeXt. I even provided a script that will convert TeXML directly from
> XML to PDF or other print formats. The name of this script is texml_con.
> It is only available on CVS right now, but I should make it available as
> a package sometime later today.
> 
> I will have to aske the administrator of the sourceforge site to update
> the webpage so that it mentions ConTeXt as well. 
> 
> I provide myriads of examples on the webpages in TeXML format. Running
> the TeXML script on any of these codes will change the documents to
> valid ConTeXt. 
> 
> Paul
> 

That's very  promising indeed. Right now I'm  transforming my original
xml  using xslt  to  a simpler  xml  file which  can  be processed  in
document  order to  make the  ConTeXt file  containing  xml formatting
commands as simple as possible. It would be nice to end up with an xml
file which would  contain all the formatting information  and make the
ConTeXt file unnecessary. But I'm afraid of two things:

1. XSLT transformations  will get  so complex I  will get lost  in the
   stylesheet at some point. 

2. How the final  finetuning of the appearence of  the typeset version
   should be done? Surely not by fiddling in the xml file which should
   be generated by xslt (or  whatever) and I'm not sure making changes
   in  the xslt  stylesheet to  make some  pages one  line  shorter or
   longer is the  way to go.
 
Piotr

-- 
   Piotr Kopszak, Ph.D.          
   Polish Art Gallery, National Museum in Warsaw    
   ----------------------------->    http://kopszak.mnw.art.pl/
   http://www.magnatune.com/artists/altri_stromenti

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Paul Tremblay]

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 10:51:44AM +0200, Piotr Kopszak wrote:
> 
> That's very  promising indeed. Right now I'm  transforming my original
> xml  using xslt  to  a simpler  xml  file which  can  be processed  in
> document  order to  make the  ConTeXt file  containing  xml formatting
> commands as simple as possible. It would be nice to end up with an xml
> file which would  contain all the formatting information  and make the
> ConTeXt file unnecessary. But I'm afraid of two things:
> 
> 1. XSLT transformations  will get  so complex I  will get lost  in the
>    stylesheet at some point. 
> 
> 2. How the final  finetuning of the appearence of  the typeset version
>    should be done? Surely not by fiddling in the xml file which should
>    be generated by xslt (or  whatever) and I'm not sure making changes
>    in  the xslt  stylesheet to  make some  pages one  line  shorter or
>    longer is the  way to go.
>  

Hi Piotr,

First, if you use TeXML, make sure you download the latest version,
1.25-devel. This version is very stable and robust, and has the
texml_con script, which converts directly from XML to PDF or whatever
format you require:

texml_con <any option you can use with texexec> infile

It will create a ConTeX file along the way, as its first step. So if
your file is modern_photo.xml, a file called modern_photo.tex will be
created. You could open the modern_photo.tex file and make small changes
on that file. However, if you need to do this, you should instead type:

texml.py -e -c modern_photo.xml modern_photo.tex

That will create a ConTeXt file, which you can then alter.

Of course, having to alter the ConTeXt file defeats the purpose of XML.
You should be able to convert directly from XML to PDF. What alterations
do you think you will have to make? 

I know XSLT stylesheets can get very complicated. This is often the
case, including when I convert XML to HTML. You could try converting in
steps, making a small manageble change on one document, and then making
a small manageable change and so on.

Let me know your results. Good luck!

Paul

-- 

************************
*Paul Tremblay         *
*phthenry@iglou.com    *
************************

Re: Re: page on context and XML has moved

[Piotr Kopszak]

> 
> Hi Piotr,
> 
> First, if you use TeXML, make sure you download the latest version,
> 1.25-devel. This version is very stable and robust, and has the
> texml_con script, which converts directly from XML to PDF or whatever
> format you require:
> 
> texml_con <any option you can use with texexec> infile
> 
> It will create a ConTeX file along the way, as its first step. So if
> your file is modern_photo.xml, a file called modern_photo.tex will be
> created. You could open the modern_photo.tex file and make small changes
> on that file. However, if you need to do this, you should instead type:
> 
> texml.py -e -c modern_photo.xml modern_photo.tex
> 
> That will create a ConTeXt file, which you can then alter.
> 
> Of course, having to alter the ConTeXt file defeats the purpose of XML.
> You should be able to convert directly from XML to PDF. What alterations
> do you think you will have to make? 
> 
> I know XSLT stylesheets can get very complicated. This is often the
> case, including when I convert XML to HTML. You could try converting in
> steps, making a small manageble change on one document, and then making
> a small manageable change and so on.
> 
> Let me know your results. Good luck!
> 
> Paul
> 
> -- 
> 
> ************************
> *Paul Tremblay         *
> *phthenry@iglou.com    *
> ************************
> _______________________________________________
> ntg-context mailing list
> ntg-context@ntg.nl
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context

For instance in  the last catalogue I was typesetting  I had to change
hyphenation of some words in the final stage of work. By the way, this
is a more  general problem. Is it possible  to change hyphenation only
locally in ConTeXt?   That means to exclude possibility  of breaking a
word in  some place on one  page and allow  it on other pages?   I was
lucky as I had problems with words that appeared only once in the text
so  I   did  not  have  to   bother,  but  that   was  an  exceptional
situation. The  other thing that comes  to my mind are  all the things
that \adaptlayout was  invented for.  I don't believe  you can produce
large documents  without such last touches,  but on the  other hand it
does not make  much sense to me to edit by  hand the resulting ConTeXt
file. Maybe such changes could live in another xml file which could be
included at the end of work.

Piotr

-- 
   Piotr Kopszak, Ph.D.          
   Polish Art Gallery, National Museum in Warsaw    
   ----------------------------->    http://kopszak.mnw.art.pl/
   http://www.magnatune.com/artists/altri_stromenti