*************************************************************** ****************** WELCOME TO SGML NEWSWIRE ******************* *************************************************************** * * * To subscribe, send mail to sgmlinfo@avalanche.com. * * * * To receive a current table of contents and instructions * * for orderering back issues, send mail to * * sgmlinfo@avalanche.com with "send toc" * * in the subject header. * * * * (Please pass along to interested colleagues) * * * *************************************************************** NOVELL MANUAL SET AS SGML DEMO ============================== The following announcement was posted to comp.text.sgml on 12 June 1994. People looking for examples of mainstream commercial hypertext applications based on SGML markup may be interested in the following announcement, which was posted recently on comp.sys.novell and bit.listserv.novell. The manual set described in the announcement was generated automatically from SGML-tagged text compliant with the DocBook 2.1 DTD (with minor extensions for NetWare-specific document elements and specialized link types). The documents were originally authored in FrameMaker on a variety of platforms and converted to DocBook using FastTAG, then validated using the sgmls parser and published with DynaText. Internal hypertext links in each book were automatically generated from existing FrameMaker cross references; links between books were inserted by the authors using reserved FrameMaker marker types and then converted to SGML link elements as part of the conversion process. The Master Index was generated by a large perl script from existing index markers in the FrameMaker originals. Both the 5000-page manual set and its DynaText 2.2 viewer can be freely downloaded and distributed by anyone who is interested in this technology (and has the disk space available). I have been told by several people that an earlier release of this manual set last fall was quite helpful in demonstrating basic SGML and hypertext concepts in practical use, especially in discussions with managers. I hope that the revised set is similarly useful. I also hope that the set can serve another purpose: to demonstrate to those working in the Internet community the kind of functionality that must become available in viewers like Mosaic before companies such as Novell can distribute complex technical data over the WWW. I refer in particular to the following features, among others: Automatic structural navigation -- note the dynamic TOCs, all automatically generated from the tagged document structure Dynamic formatting -- note that text reformats to fit the window, making possible multiple windows into the information Table display -- note that tables are searchable text, not just bitmaps Searching by context -- note the difference between searching over the entire collection on the regular expression print* versus the context searches print* in print* in <msg> print* in <procedure> The ability to modify presentation by choosing different output specifications at run time -- note the difference between the views FULLTEXT, INDEXED, and ICONONLY HTML proponents: consider this set a benchmark. Jon Bosak Novell Electronic Publishing ************************************************************** * SGML NEWSWIRE LIST MANAGER * * * * Linda Turner * * Corporate Communications * * Avalanche * * 947 Walnut Street * * Boulder, CO 80302 * * sgmlinfo@avalanche.com * * linda@avalanche.com * * Vox: (303) 449-5032 * * Fax: (303) 449-3246 * **************************************************************