On Fri, 7 Mar 1997 11:47:08 -0500 Terry Ballard said:
>   I apologize in advance if this is too much of a novice question, but I
>just completed an EAD finding aid using Author/Editor. The file passes
>the AE quality check, but it does not automatically parse in Panorama,
>either using the software on the hard drive, or distributing it on the web
>from my home page (http://pages.nyu.edu/~ballard/nyuead.sgm). My
>TEILite files work perfectly locally, and for Panorama Free users who
>call them up on the web.  I know it can be done, because I have called
>up some of the sample EAD files put out by LC, and they work perfectly
>(I looked at their entityrc file, and didn't see any special instructions for
>EAD).  Can anybody tell me what is missing here?

Not without more information.  Since you identify yourself as (in some
sense) a novice, it may be worth while saying explicitly what most
novices don't know, and most programmers are not good about explaining.
When you report a bug, or inquire about a problem, it's almost always
helpful to give more information.

  - what versions of what programs (here, A/E and Panorama) are you
using?
  - what specifically are you doing that elicits the problem (actually,
here you are already doing fine)
  - most important, what are the symptoms?  Are there error messages?
What do they say?  In complete excruciating detail, character by
character.  Be pedantic in your transcription of error messages.  The
information in them is almost always there solely because it is
essential in some cases.  If there are no error messages, but there is
still an error, then you must explain what signs lead you to believe an
error is occurring.  (Displaying a blank screen when the document is not
empty is one suggestive symptom.  But it's not always an error:  I can
cause that effect with a well-chosen style-sheet entry.)

I suppose I could go on, but surely the author of Zen and the Art of
Troubleshooting won't need that.

Off the top of my head, without further information, I'd guess that
Panorama is failing to find the EAD DTD.  (One alternative is that
it's finding it, but is finding an error in the document that A/E is
not finding.  This is a logical possibility but so incredibly unlikely
that I just don't believe it.  A/E is designed to produce valid
documents, and to be strict; Panorama is designed to be generous, and
to handle even invalid documents whenever possible.  The discovery of
a type of SGML error which Panorama finds and A/E misses is just too
implausible to consider until other possibilities are eliminated.)

Looking at the directory you mention, I am unable to find an SGML Open
catalog file, which would surely explain the problem.  Panorama
must be told where to find anything referred to using an SGML PUBLIC
identifier, and the mechanism used is the Catalog file format invented
by SGML Open (the SGML industry consortium).  Details are in the
Softquad documentation about SGML on the Web, as well as the Panorama
documentation, so I won't repeat it all here.

In brief, you will need to ensure that Panorama can find the DTD (for
which you'll need to make a catalog entry) and a style sheet and
navigator (for which you'll need to make entries in an entityrc file).
For local use, these can go in the standard catalog and entityrc files;
for network use, they need to go in catalog and entityrc files in thee
directory where the document is located.

But without an error message to consider, this all remains purest
speculation.  I hope it's helpful nevertheless.

-C. M. Sperberg-McQueen