Re: [Groff] XML and groff as frontend

[Ted Harding]

On 22-Oct-05 Zvezdan Petkovic wrote:
[...]> 
> That's also a nice example of how painful is writing in XML.
> You use a totally different tool (Vim) to help another tool that's
> supposedly made to help you with XML (FrameMaker).
> 
> Also, sections and lists are the least of my issues with XML.
> Paragraphs like this one are the problem (quite frequent when writing
> about computing):
> 
>       Use either <command>cp -a</command> or
>       <command>cp -Rdp</command> when copying, to preserve as much of
>       the original attributes of an application.
>       Then in <filename>rootfs/sbin</filename> make a
>       <emphasis>hard</emphasis> link from <command>mke2fs</command> to
>       both <command>mkfs.ext2</command> and
>       <command>mkfs.ext3</command>.
> 
> If you count the characters in markup elements, they'll come quite
> close to the number of characters in the real content of the
> paragraph. I did the markup after writing, because the number of
> interruptions of the thought process is mind-boggling otherwise.

Well, if you're using vim ...

First enter the following (in command mode) to define abbreviations:

:ab <c <command
:ab /c </command>
:ab <f <filename
:ab /f </filename>
:ab <e <emphasis
:ab /e </emphasis>

Then, in insert mode, enter:

Use either <c>cp -a/c or
<c>cp -Rdp/c when copying, to preserve as much of 
the original attributes of an application.
Then in <f>rootfs/sbin/f make a
<e>hard/e link from <c>mke2fs/c to
both <c>mkfs.ext2/c and
<c>mkfs.ext3/c.


(which I did by copy&paste from another window which originally
contained your original above, edited into the above form by

:.,$s/<command>/<c/g

etc)

and vim automatically creates:

Use either <command>cp -a</coomand> or
<command>cp -Rdp</coomand> when copying, to preserve as much of 
the original attributes of an application.
Then in <filename>rootfs/sbin</filename> make a
<emphasis>hard</emphasis> link from <command>mke2fs</coomand> to
both <command>mkfs.ext2</coomand> and
<command>mkfs.ext3</coomand>.


[Sorry, just flaunting my favourite editer].

I agree totally about the interruption to thought, though, and
I don't think my trick would help much on that front (and in fact
setting it up was made easy by having the final form in front
of me; not so easy to do it "blind").

On the other hand, using simple groff macros for the font switches
doesn't cause me any problems at all .. I wonder why ...?

Best wishes,
Ted.


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Date: 22-Oct-05                                       Time: 23:45:44
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