docbook-apps

  • 1.  Docbook XSL, Bibliographies, and Citations

    Posted 02-23-2009 17:48
    Dear All,
    I am a Humanities scholar with a computer programming background
    who is looking into alternatives to MS Word for Humanities scholars.
    I have already successfully used LaTeX to create my thesis but LaTeX
    is starting to show its age and I was wondering if Docbook might be a
    good replacement. I have already successfully formatted parts of my
    thesis in Docbook v5 and obtained a sufficiently acceptable PDF with
    FOP.
    Looking down the road, I have two problems with some serious
    constraints that you might be able to assist me with. First, citation
    styling. I have read around the mail list and on the web that the
    most common way to style citations and bibliography with Docbook is to
    use RefDB. This is the first constraint: I cannot use RefDB. On my
    own machine, I am running Ubuntu 8.10 amd64 and RefDB refuses to
    install from source (it cannot find libreadline during configure and I
    cannot figure out how to force it to look in /lib to find it). For
    other scholars, they will invariably use Windows and for the ones that
    I am directly in contact with, getting new software deployed would be
    a massive hassle and attempting to guide them through it at home would
    also be very difficult. So, from what I am able to discover, I would
    have to write (or rewrite) the bibliography XSL so that the
    bibliography and the bibliorefs in citation tags would be correctly
    done in XSL:FO for processing with FOP. Is this correct and do you
    have any pointers on how to do it? I am vaguely familiar with XSL
    from about eight years ago. The format that I must be able to use is
    the MHRA standard. Also, I would be willing to release the resulting
    XSL for others to use.
    The second problem, which you will probably not be able to help
    me much, has to do with the fact that my thesis has a critical edition
    of an middle Irish poem. In LaTeX, I was able to use the ednotes
    package to correctly format the textual notes at the bottom of the
    page. I am thinking that I would have to use something like TEI and
    then write my own XSL stylesheet to translate that into XSL:FO for
    processing with FOP. Does this sound reasonable?
    I would very much appreciate any help or thoughts that you might
    have. Thank you very much for your time.

    Sincerely,
    Chris Yocum



  • 2.  [docbook-apps] Docbook XSL, Bibliographies, and Citations

    Posted 02-23-2009 23:20
    Chris Yocum writes:
    > use RefDB. This is the first constraint: I cannot use RefDB. On my
    > own machine, I am running Ubuntu 8.10 amd64 and RefDB refuses to
    > install from source (it cannot find libreadline during configure and I
    > cannot figure out how to force it to look in /lib to find it).

    Although this is a bit off-topic here, usually this kind of error is
    caused by missing -dev packages. configure cannot find
    libreadline because all you have installed are the runtime libraries
    (foo.so) but not the development libraries (foo.a) which are required
    to build a piece of software instead of just run it. The best place
    to get this fixed in no time is the refdb mailing list
    (http://refdb.sourceforge.net/doc.html).

    > For
    > other scholars, they will invariably use Windows and for the ones that
    > I am directly in contact with, getting new software deployed would be
    > a massive hassle and attempting to guide them through it at home would
    > also be very difficult.

    RefDB is clearly a Unixish application, not an Endnote clone, so it'll
    take some getting used to it for the average Windows user. Windows
    per se is not an obstacle as Cygwin binaries are available. I've been
    using RefDB at work for more than 8 years on various Windows boxes.

    > So, from what I am able to discover, I would
    > have to write (or rewrite) the bibliography XSL so that the
    > bibliography and the bibliorefs in citation tags would be correctly
    > done in XSL:FO for processing with FOP. Is this correct and do you
    > have any pointers on how to do it? I am vaguely familiar with XSL
    > from about eight years ago. The format that I must be able to use is
    > the MHRA standard. Also, I would be willing to release the resulting
    > XSL for others to use.

    If you're not looking for a reference database with formatting
    capabilities, but just for the formatting part, RefDB may indeed be
    the wrong tool. There have been several attempts to create XSL-based
    bibliography styling tools. The following projects may be closer to
    what you have in mind:

    http://silmaril.ie/bibliox/biblioxdoc.html
    http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/citeproc/index.html

    Hope this helps
    Markus

    --
    Markus Hoenicka
    markus.hoenicka@cats.de
    (Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
    http://www.mhoenicka.de



  • 3.  Re: [docbook-apps] Docbook XSL, Bibliographies, and Citations

    Posted 02-24-2009 00:40
    On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 11:19 PM, Markus Hoenicka
    <markus.hoenicka@mhoenicka.de> wrote:
    > Chris Yocum writes:
    >  > use RefDB.  This is the first constraint: I cannot use RefDB.  On my
    >  > own machine, I am running Ubuntu 8.10 amd64 and RefDB refuses to
    >  > install from source (it cannot find libreadline during configure and I
    >  > cannot figure out how to force it to look in /lib to find it).
    >
    > Although this is a bit off-topic here, usually this kind of error is
    > caused by missing -dev packages. configure cannot find
    > libreadline because all you have installed are the runtime libraries
    > (foo.so) but not the development libraries (foo.a) which are required
    > to build a piece of software instead of just run it. The best place
    > to get this fixed in no time is the refdb mailing list
    > (http://refdb.sourceforge.net/doc.html).

    Ah, thanks! I might try RefDB again once I get the proper dev libs installed.

    >
    >  > For
    >  > other scholars, they will invariably use Windows and for the ones that
    >  > I am directly in contact with, getting new software deployed would be
    >  > a massive hassle and attempting to guide them through it at home would
    >  > also be very difficult.
    >
    > RefDB is clearly a Unixish application, not an Endnote clone, so it'll
    > take some getting used to it for the average Windows user. Windows
    > per se is not an obstacle as Cygwin binaries are available. I've been
    > using RefDB at work for more than 8 years on various Windows boxes.
    >
    >  > So, from what I am able to discover, I would
    >  > have to write (or rewrite) the bibliography XSL so that the
    >  > bibliography and the bibliorefs in citation tags would be correctly
    >  > done in XSL:FO for processing with FOP.  Is this correct and do you
    >  > have any pointers on how to do it?  I am vaguely familiar with XSL
    >  > from about eight years ago.  The format that I must be able to use is
    >  > the MHRA standard.  Also, I would be willing to release the resulting
    >  > XSL for others to use.
    >
    > If you're not looking for a reference database with formatting
    > capabilities, but just for the formatting part, RefDB may indeed be
    > the wrong tool. There have been several attempts to create XSL-based
    > bibliography styling tools. The following projects may be closer to
    > what you have in mind:
    >
    > http://silmaril.ie/bibliox/biblioxdoc.html
    > http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/citeproc/index.html

    Thank you very much for this. I guess what I am trying to do is
    reduce the number of dependencies and bits of software that I would
    have them learn. Unfortunately for the projects that you cite, they
    seem to be rather old and out of date without a larger community
    (which is a bit of a requirement because I would assume that my
    colleagues would need help when I am not available).

    I will give RefDB another shot and see how I get on with it.

    Thanks you again,
    Chris Yocum