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List:       lyx-users
Subject:    Re: Progress on the MS Word to LyX conversion
From:       Manveru <manveru () manveru ! pl>
Date:       2008-07-24 13:37:30
Message-ID: 936b14d20807240637x22b6d3a2tdb094eb65111634 () mail ! gmail ! com
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I understand DTD simplicity... but it is no longer fresh these days. Schema
allows better understanding and can be processed by XSLT.

2008/7/23 John <john@og.co.nz>:

> On Wednesday 23 July 2008 08:04:59 am Steve Litt wrote:
> > On Tuesday 22 July 2008 11:32, rgheck wrote:
> > > Steve Litt wrote:
> > > > I don't know how it will be after LyX goes XML, but right now at
> 1.5.3,
> > > > converting my LyX code to something else by parsing the LyX native
> code
> > > > would be trivial.
> This is probably teaching Grandma to suck eggs - but
> There is a very good set of XML utilities available in Linux which alloy
> you
> easily parse and transform .xml files into almost anything you want (using
> xslt, sax, and friends. In openSUSE it is called xmlstarlet and comes with
> the installation CDs or DVD.
> These should make it easy to translate to and from LyX (when it finally
> goes
> fully XML).
>
> John O'Gorman
> > >
> > > My understanding is that, whatever happens with the LyX file format, we
> > > want it to remain possible to do the sort of simple scripting we all
> > > like to be able to do. The XML business is really just a matter of
> > > replacing things like this:
> > >
> > > \begin_layout Standard
> > > this.
> > > \end_layout
> > >
> > > \begin_layout Standard
> > > \begin_inset CommandInset bibtex
> > > LatexCommand bibtex
> > > bibfiles "/tmp/bib"
> > > options "plain"
> > >
> > > \end_inset
> > >
> > >
> > > \end_layout
> > >
> > > with things like this:
> > >
> > > <layout name="Standard">
> > > this.
> > > </layout>
> > >
> > > <layout name="Standard">
> > > <inset type="bibtext" latex="bibtex" bibfiles="/tmp/bib"
> options="plain"
> > > /> </layout>
> > >
> > > Just as easy to parse, I hope. Maybe even easier.
> > >
> > > That's not anything actually agreed or implemented....
> >
> > It's not as easy to parse, but it's reasonable. If that's the extent of
> the
> > XMLization of LyX, it should still be somewhat tweakable with Vim, Perl,
> > etc.
> >
> > The real problems come in when they do things in XML that would be
> > denormalization in a database. Store the paragraphs one place, and then
> > store the *number of paragraphs* somewhere else, so if you add a
> paragraph
> > and forget to increment the number, your doc no longer opens.
> >
> > Or treating the XML file like a relational database, where you have a
> list
> > of styles with numbered IDs one place, and then have those numbers
> applied
> > to paragraphs somewhere else. This is an excellent programming technique,
> > but for the guy just trying to casually go in and tweak something, or
> > casually trying to programmatically generate LyX data, it can be daunting
> > indeed. Personally, I love having my style defs in the layout file and
> > using the style names as their identifiers.
> >
> > Then there's this habit of people like OpenOffice, where the native
> format
> > is a Zip file unzipping to different directories, each containing XML
> files
> > and other types of files. Yeah, I just dare anyone to generate OpenOffice
> > on the fly.
> >
> > I suggest that whatever you decide, you document the XML structure. I
> don't
> > mean document as in "it's open source, read the code". I mean document as
> > in "Here is the data hierarchy, here is the high level data design, here
> > are our reasons for doing it this way, here are the data
> interdependencies,
> > here are some tips for building LyX files programmatically and tweaking
> > them either programmatically or with an editor. And here is a tutorial on
> > building and tweaking LyX files without the LyX front end.
> >
> > I'm busy these days, but if you keep me in the loop I'll do at least a
> good
> > chunk of that documentation.
> >
> > One more thing -- if you're going XML and don't want to reinvent the
> wheel,
> > you'll be using someone else's XML parser. Please, please, PLEASE, don't
> > make it some parser with tons of dependency so that the guy with a 2 year
> > old distro can't compile LyX because of the XML parser. We already have
> > enough problems with Qt dependencies.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > SteveT
> >
> > Steve Litt
> > Recession Relief Package
> > http://www.recession-relief.US
>
>
>


-- 
Manveru
jabber: manveru@manveru.pl
gg: 1624001
http://www.manveru.pl


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