Re: Free PageMaker-style program?
On 20 Nov 1997, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> writes:
> > On 20 Nov 1997, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> > > That's an idea. I'm planning to write it this way:
> > >
> > > 1. Design a script-like language that can be used to fully specify how
> > > an output page should look. This will be the equivalent of TeX for
> > > desktop publishing. This step I am partway through with--but I'm
> > > still seeking ideas.
> >
> > Hm, something like that is already done. Look at the DSSSL spec, it can
> > completely specifiy the formatting of SGML documents
> > (http://www.sil.org/sgml)
>
> I looked at this and I don't think DSSSL is what I want. Sure, it
> describes the contents of a page quite nicely--but it's Turing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> complete; it's not suitable for a interactive editing tool.
ERm, DSSSL doesn't define the contents of a page, that is something like
PostScript. DSSSL is a style sheet language and in simple terms tells the
DSSSL processor what text marked with tags looks like. The rendering
section of a web browser can be expressed using DSSSL.
SGML covers the markup and tagging aspect of text and HyTime covers the
hypertext and referencing aspect of text.
If you look at a publishing program like Page Maker you see there are
three things it can do:
1 - Assign styles to blocks of text
2 - Assign priting attributes to styles (bold, etc)
3 - Render the text + attributes on screen
Things like graphics, frames and such are a part of 1 (think HTML which
is an application of SGML).
SGML nicely covers storage for item 1.
DSSSL deals with the storage for 2, you provide a nice GUI for doing
things like makeing the Heading text a 12pt Bold font.
A DSSSL Engine takes the stored SGML and DSSSL files and renders them on
screen or into PostScript.
[ I use the term storage to refer to the on-disk representation of the
data you are dealing with. ]
Pretty much every publishing thing I can think of can be delt with by the
combination of a complete DSSSL+SGML engine. All a Page Layout tool like
page maker does is provide a snazzy GUI so you can create the DSSSL and
SGML data files.
The thing is, SGML, DSSSL and HyTime are amazingly general. There is very
little text processing that they cannot deal with when combined.
Of course the huge benifit from using standard file formats for your Style
and Document storage is that you do not tie the user to your program, but
give them the freedom to use anything which complies to the ISO standards.
The only trouble is such a tool would only be able to deal with a very
specific form of DSSSL data files to enable interactive editing of the
style data...
Jason
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