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[seul-edu] XML [was: Some nitty with a bit of gritty..].
XML is just syntax...a method of writing and verifying documents. However
you have to create your own lexicon of meaningful tags. Meaningful tag
sets already exist in the Docbook and TEI markup languages. Of course you
could use a subset of these tagsets (which also exist). You can also use
the Pizza Chef which will develop a DTD (ie loosely "tag set") for you.
However the tools for this are not particularly easy to use.
Good authoring environments do exist as add-on packages for Emacs, (or as
commercial packages).
If you decide to travel down this road, there is a very large learning
curve and the W3 folks keep churning out more specs of various sorts. I
would suggest that you IGNORE any W3 standards, etc. and concentrate on
learning the tools...first a simple authoring environment like the PSGML
environment for Emacs. Then have a look at a rendering environment that
will allow you to produce web or printed output. Something like Jade...
I would also take a hard look at the entire TeX/LaTeX development
environment since it creates great output and most Linux Distros have
everything installed. The important tools for web output are PDFLatex and
Latex2HTML (and Tex4HT).
Give me a shout if you would like any more specifics or I can be of any
assistance.
Les Richardson
H. Hardcastle School
Edam, Sk. Canada
> I'd say XML could solve your problem (tags for difficulty, level, and
> whihever classification you think of, then write a script that parses the
> XML file (XML parsing packages are available in Perl, Python, PHP and most
> other languages) and generates the web pages or printable lessons,
> whichever you need.
>
> [ I'm not much of XML guy, used it a couple of times only, for those who
> don't know, XML is a kind of "custom" HTML, where you make up tags upon
> demand, such as
>
> <lesson difficulty="piece-of-cake" agerange="5-12">
> <title>Building a kite</title>
> <body>Bla bla bla...</body>
> </lesson>
>
> and then use a XML-parsing package to use the structured information as
> you see fit: build HTMLs out of it, LaTeX source, etc. ]
>
> .........................................................................
> Felipe Paulo Guazzi Bergo - Free Software Developer (bergo@seul.org)
> GPG/PGP mail welcome - GPG/PGP Key: EF8EE808 (keyserver pgp.mit.edu)
> http://www.advogato.org/person/khazad - Brasilia - DF - Brazil - Earth
>
> * Keyboard error. Think <F1> to resume.
>