collaborative editing

[Michele Simionato]

Suppose I want to write a book with many authors via the Web. The book has
a hierarchical structure with chapter, sections, subsections, subsubsections,
etc. At each moment it must be possible to print the current version of the
book in PDF format. There must be automatic generation of the table of contents,
indices, etc. Conversions to many formats (Latex, DocBook, etc.) would be
welcome. Does something like that already exists? Alternatively, I would need
some hierarchical Wiki with the ability of printing its contents in an
structured way.


Michele Simionato

 

[Robert Kern]

Suppose I want to write a book with many authors via the Web. The book has
a hierarchical structure with chapter, sections, subsections, subsubsections,
etc. At each moment it must be possible to print the current version of the
book in PDF format. There must be automatic generation of the table of contents,
indices, etc. Conversions to many formats (Latex, DocBook, etc.) would be
welcome. Does something like that already exists? Alternatively, I would need
some hierarchical Wiki with the ability of printing its contents in an
structured way.

Does it have to be via the Web? Why doesn't LaTeX/DocBook with a central
CVS/Subversion repository work for what you want to do?

Personally, I loathe writing at any length inside a Web browser and
prefer to use a real editor at all times.

--
Robert Kern
(e-mail address removed)

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter

 

[Jeremy Jones]

Does it have to be via the Web? Why doesn't LaTeX/DocBook with a
central CVS/Subversion repository work for what you want to do?

Personally, I loathe writing at any length inside a Web browser and
prefer to use a real editor at all times.

Actually, in a sense, if you put up a SVN repository under Apache, the
repository is available "via the Web" just as the OP requires. He'll
have to specify further, but I'm not so sure this is a requirement to be
able to edit via a browser over the web, or just have the repository on
the web somewhere that multiple people can access it.

But SVN will work pretty well, I think, for what you're doing.
Especially if the authors are editing different sections of the file.
If two (or more) authors try to edit the same section of file, the first
one to commit the change will "win" and any subsequent commits will not
be able to commit the change until the resolve the conflict.

Jeremy Jones

 

[Nick Craig-Wood]

Personally, I loathe writing at any length inside a Web browser and
prefer to use a real editor at all times.

Me too! You need mozex...

http://mozex.mozdev.org/

Not sure about Mac support though

/OT

 

[A.M. Kuchling]

welcome. Does something like that already exists? Alternatively, I would need
some hierarchical Wiki with the ability of printing its contents in an
structured way.

At least one book, Eric van der Vlist's RELAX NG book, was written using a
Wiki; see http://books.xmlschemata.org/relaxng/pr01s05.html/ .

--amk

 

[MMM]

Suppose I want to write a book with many authors via the Web. The book has
a hierarchical structure with chapter, sections, subsections, subsubsections,
etc. At each moment it must be possible to print the current version of the
book in PDF format. There must be automatic generation of the table of contents,
indices, etc. Conversions to many formats (Latex, DocBook, etc.) would be
welcome. Does something like that already exists? Alternatively, I would need
some hierarchical Wiki with the ability of printing its contents in an
structured way.


Michele Simionato

Tkae a look at
http://www.infrae.org/products/silva/

Regards,
Mikhail

 

[Doug Holton]

Suppose I want to write a book with many authors via the Web. The book has
a hierarchical structure with chapter, sections, subsections, subsubsections,
etc. At each moment it must be possible to print the current version of the
book in PDF format. There must be automatic generation of the table of contents,
indices, etc. Conversions to many formats (Latex, DocBook, etc.) would be
welcome. Does something like that already exists? Alternatively, I would need
some hierarchical Wiki with the ability of printing its contents in an
structured way.

You want a wiki engine. There are many to choose from, some of which
have all the features you want.
See for example Atlassian Confluence. We are using it to create
documentation for boo ( http://boo.codehaus.org ). This page for
example has child pages and you can export pages to html, pdf, or xml.
http://docs.codehaus.org/display/BOO/Recipes
http://docs.codehaus.org/spaces/exportspace.action?key=BOO

I think the PHP/MySQL-based Tiki wiki has similar features, too.
http://tikiwiki.org/tiki-index.php

 

[Mike Meyer]

Personally, I loathe writing at any length inside a Web browser and
prefer to use a real editor at all times.

. w3m invokes $VISUAL on a temp file when you edit a TEXTAREA. It's
*so* nice to be able to insert a file instead of cutting and pasting
it.

<mike

 

[Nick Craig-Wood]

Me too! You need mozex...

http://mozex.mozdev.org/

Here is a good page about Wikis (from the creators of spamassassin)
including stuff about Moin Moin (which is in Python) - lots of good
advice for anyone thinging about a Wiki.

http://taint.org/2004/09/28/191712a.html