At 05:58 PM 10/22/96 -0400, Peter D. Verheyen wrote:
>I have the WP7 Suite, couldn't compile the lgc file because of character
>sets, got an alpha based lgc file from David Clough at Yale and have been
>practicing with that. There are still many questions which plague me in
all this
>
>My questions are these.
>I looked at the .sgm file which passed validation and noticed that there are
>no declarations at the top saying what dtd this is based on... Is this a
>result of going straight to a lgc and not compiling my own? One problem I
>noticed and which David helped me with is that some of the character sets
>are missing in the eadchars.ent and one needs another entities file or
>something? Is that correct? Is saving a file as .sgm enough, or does it need
>to be manually tweeked

By "declarations" do you mean "<!DOCTYPE"? There should be one (it's a
required part of an SGML document)--when you save the document and specify
"SGML" as the file type, make sure the "Include Document Type Declaration"
box is checked. The beginning of your document should then look something
like this:

<!DOCTYPE TEI.2 PUBLIC "-//TEI//DTD TEI Lite 1.6 //EN" "teilite.dtd">
<TEI.2>...

>When working in the layout "module" it saves by default as a .lsi file, but
>I can save to text. When I do that there are no declarations at the top
>saying what this is. Do I need to imput that manually or does Panorama read
>.lsi files?

Panorama does not read .lsi files--they are unique to Wordperfect and only
define Wordperfect's formatting for a particular document type.  You
shouldn't have to worry about how they are saved.

>How do I get the sgm file to reference the lsi (ssh) file?

For Wordperfect, you associate "layouts" (lsi) files with a document type
by selecting SGML->Document Types from the menu bar.  This brings up the
Document Types dialog.  From there, select the document type you want to
apply an LSI to and press the Edit button.  This brings up the Document
Type Entries dialog.  From here you can associate one or more layouts with
the document.

For Panorama, style sheets are associated with documents through any of
three possible methods:

1. Default style sheets and navigators.

   Panorama will look in the document's directory for a style sheet and
   navigator whose names are the same as the DTD's name.  For example,
   if the DTD is "teilite.dtd" then Panorama will look for "teilite.ssh"
   and "teilite.nav".

2. Processing instructions in the document (or external DTD subset).
   For example, you can have something like this:

   <!DOCTYPE TEI PUBLIC "..." [
     <?STYLESPEC "Main View" "teilite.ssh" >
  ]>

  "<?" starts a processing instruction (PI). The keyword "STYLESPEC" is
  defined by Panorama (the SGML standard does not define anything about
  what might go inside PIs). The first quoted string is a title for the
  style sheet (which shows up in Panorama's Style menu).  The second
  string is the location of the actual style sheet.  This can be either
  a PC filename or a URL (for Web-delivered documents).

  For Panorama navigators, you use a similar PI:

  <?NAVIGATOR "Toc" "teilite.ssh" >

3. Entries in the Panorama ENTITYRC file.  One of Panorama's configuration
   files is called ENTITYRC, normally in the /panorama/entityrc directory.
   One of the things it does is map the public identifiers of style sheets
   to their location on a machine or in the network.  This file is updated
   whenever you use the "Attach style sheet" or "Attach navigator" features.
   You can also edit it yourself (the format is pretty obvious).

I recommend option 2 for documents that will be delivered to others.

>When we went through our training at the Fast workshops, we were given a
>good understanding of working in EAD and doing markup, something I am
>discovering to be the easy part. What was seriously lacking was instruction
>in actually mounting the sgml files, making sure that everything was there,
>that the files all connected. Am I the only one feeling frustrated?

No, this is a common problem with SGML.  It results in part from SGML's
strengths, which are flexibility and generality, which have the side effect
of making it possible for different tools to do things different ways.  In
other words, SGML, as an enabling technology, can't say "there is exactly
one way to do things."  This puts the burden on tools to provide easy and
convenient ways to configure the SGML setup.  Unfortunately, most tools
have failed to make it easy enough for casual users to do the sorts of
things you're trying to do.

Most existing SGML tools were designed for environments where an expert
configures the system and then authors just use what they're given.
Obviously, that world is changing and tools need to do better.  Using SGML
can be as convenient and easy as using Word or HTML editors if tool vendors
put in the effort to make it so.  The SGML Open consortium is making
progress in that direction by defining industry standards for aspects of
SGML use that the standards themselves leave open.

I urge you to provide feedback to the vendors of the tools you're using
telling them precisely what you found difficult or confusing and providing
suggestions for things that would make it easier.  Only with that soft of
feedback will vendors get the message and make improvements.  My experience
is that most vendors are hungry for user feedback and, in the abscense of
it, tend to make design decisions based on their own limited experience or
that of their biggest customers.  Most SGML tool vendors are small and easy
to reach.

Another problem is the lack of standards for SGML style sheets.  Today,
almost all products have their own way of defining styles with no good
interchange mechanism.  The newly-published DSSSL Standard, ISO/IEC 10179,
provides a standard for SGML-related style sheets, but it will take a while
for vendors to add support for it to their products.

Cheers,

Eliot
--
W. Eliot Kimber ([log in to unmask])
Senior SGML Consultant and HyTime Specialist
Passage Systems, Inc., (512)339-1400
10596 N. Tantau Ave., Cupertino, CA 95014-3535 (408) 366-0300, (408)
366-0320 (fax)
2608 Pinewood Terrace, Austin, TX 78757 (512) 339-1400 (fone/fax)
http://www.passage.com (work) http://www.drmacro.com (home)
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