Re: [boost] Do we need BoostBook?

On 8 Dec 2014, at 10:34, Paul A. Bristow wrote:

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-----Original Message----- From: Boost [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Vladimir Prus Sent: 08 December 2014 10:06 To: boost@lists.boost.org Subject: Re: [boost] Do we need BoostBook?

On 12/08/2014 12:04 PM, John Maddock wrote:

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We're responsible for that too - it's part of our customisation layer - if it's old fashioned, it's because it was written a long time ago and no one has touched it since!

Are you sure? It appears to be admon.xsl:graphical.admonition template in base Docbook XSLT layer, with BoostBook doing minor tweaks only. Anyway, I could switch to non-graphical admonitions to get HTML structure I could style, also live at above URL.

OK, my mistake, yes admonishments get transformed into tables, if this is a problem I suggest you raise it with the Docbook guys - they've been quite helpful to us in the past as I recall.

I'm fine with non-graphical admonishments (which are divs).

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Personally I like the PDF's *of individual libraries* not the whole thing - they're easier to search and often to navigate than the HTML. BTW printing HTML looses a lot of the structural information that docbook contains, for example you don't get the document outline in the left pane.

Fair enough. On the other hand, HTML produced by BoostBook/DocBook is not quite perfect either and aging, and nobody's working on improving it.

Are you sure? It's always seemed to me that docbook (and associated stylesheets) is rather well maintained, albeit they're under-resourced (like everyone!)

It's subjective, so no, I'm not sure. But the fact that it uses tables everywhere, is not mobile-friendly, and does not have modern navigation, speaks so.

It's possible, but I'm not sure that anyone would *want* to do more than look up the odd factette on a mobile. But it's certainly possible and if we can make is better, we should do it.

Would anyone want Boost docs on a tablet as bedtime reading? (except in case of serious insomnia ;-)

So I don't think that being tablet friendly is *terribly* important - hyperlinking, search and indexing and completeness are much more important design objectives and we are not doing too badly on these.

As you write from a Lakeland farm, I suspect we have quite different commutes... I read the mailing list on a phone on a train and it is common to end up on a Boost doc page from the ML. If improvements are being made I would very much welcome enhanced support for tiny devices.