[ros-dev] Testing framework

[Aliberti Emanuele]

Hi Jason

>>I like that idea of using OpenOffice. The nice thing about docbook is
>>that it makes it easy to generate all of the documentation in to HTML
>>at once. I dont know how or if you can script OpenOffice to convert
>>everything to HTML to be published on the web.
>>    
>>
>
>What is the advantage of using OpenOffice files, publishing them to
>HTML over the use of a Wiki?
>
>An immediate advantage of the Wiki over such is a system is the ease
>of linking between pages. And publishing is instantaneous and easy.
>  
>
There are a few notes I add here for further distributed thinking:

1. even if DSL access is currently offered at discount prices (at least 
here in Europe), please don't forget Italy and many other countries 
around the world, where dial-up access is the only option, or the only 
affordable/technical option; wiki is perfect for always-on users; 
eveyone else is most time off-line (me first*);

2. Docbook is an industry standard and using it as is allows easy 
generating many end-user formats (though I don't know if the local 
printing house would accept it raw; they used to accept raw PostScript 
files, a few years ago) at no cost;

3. Docbook can be used as plain 7-bit XML files or stored in a db, and 
switching between the two is possibile without loss of information 
(Exercise: provide an algorithm for storing a tree in an SQL database :);

4. For a really powerful WYSIWYG editor try XXE 2.8 by XMLMind (it's a 
Java application I currently use under Windows and under Linux; standard 
edition is free; professional edition has collaborative functions 
active, but is expensive); another powerful XML editor with team work 
capabilities is the one by Arbortext, but no free edition exist; the 
advantage in using structure-/semantics-oriented editors for writing 
large modular pieces of text is apparent;

5. Under Windows, try GemDoc for generating end-user documents given a 
valid {SGML|XML} Docbook (not perfect); under Linux, usually a full free 
Docbook toolchain is available (browse the Suse 9 user manual and at 
about page 2 you'll read it was generated from a Docbook source);

6. Given the proper XLT transformation, CVS or SVN could contain the 
whole web site, but forums (perhaps); this does not mean I am against 
eZP, I just suggest we could make the eZP engine extract some 
information from a static XML base we can access using CVS/SVN;

7. OO files are XML files (well packed and compressed collections of XML 
files and binary attachments); It seems OO can load simplified Docbook 
files and export to simplified docbook, which is good for short pieces, 
but not for a quite large documentation project like ros.



Emanuele


*) this is just an abscure problem of the telco, I suspect, because I 
live just 10 km (~6 miles) far from the chief town, where the local 
university has a 122 Mbit/s link and 3G/UMTS for live videocalls  is 
available;