doc/en/xml-guide.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/xml-guide.xml,v 1.52 2005/10/13 15:57:42 neysx Exp $ -->
<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">

<guide link="/doc/en/xml-guide.xml">
<title>Gentoo XML Guide</title>

<author title="Author">
  <mail link="drobbins@gentoo.org">Daniel Robbins</mail>
</author>
<author title="Author"><!-- zhen@gentoo.org -->
  John P. Davis
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="peesh@gentoo.org">Jorge Paulo</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="swift@gentoo.org">Sven Vermeulen</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="neysx@gentoo.org">Xavier Neys</mail>
</author>

<abstract>
This guide shows you how to compose web documentation using the new lightweight
Gentoo GuideXML syntax.  This syntax is the official format for Gentoo 
documentation, and this document itself was created using GuideXML.  This guide
assumes a basic working knowledge of XML and HTML.
</abstract>

<!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license -->
<!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 -->
<license/>

<version>2.28</version>
<date>2005-10-13</date>

<chapter>
<title>Guide basics</title>
<section>
<title>Guide XML design goals</title>
<body>

<p>
The guide XML syntax is lightweight yet expressive, so that it is easy to
learn yet also provides all the features we need for the creation of web
documentation.  The number of tags is kept to a minimum -- just those we need.
This makes it easy to transform guide into other formats, such as DocBook
XML/SGML or web-ready HTML.
</p>

<p>
The goal is to make it easy to <e>create</e> and <e>transform</e> guide XML
documents.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Further Resources</title>
<body>

<p>
If you are planning on contributing documentation to Gentoo, or you want to
test GuideXML, please read our <uri
link="/proj/en/gdp/doc/doc-tipsntricks.xml">Doc Tips 'n' Tricks</uri> guide
which contains tips and tricks for documentation development.
</p>

<p>
You may want to look at the <uri link="?passthru=1">XML source</uri> of this
document while you read it.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>Guide XML</title>
<section>
<title>Basic structure</title>
<body>

<p>
Let's start learning the GuideXML syntax.  We'll start with the the initial 
tags used in a GuideXML document:
</p>

<pre caption="The initial part of a guide XML document">
&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd"&gt;
&lt;!-- &#36;Header&#36; --&gt;

&lt;guide link="<i>/doc/en/guide.xml</i>" lang="<i>en</i>"&gt;
&lt;title&gt;<i>Gentoo Documentation Guide</i>&lt;/title&gt;

&lt;author title="<i>Author</i>"&gt;
  &lt;mail link="<i>yourname@gentoo.org</i>"&gt;<i>Your Name</i>&lt;/mail&gt;
&lt;/author&gt;

&lt;abstract&gt;
<i>This guide shows you how to compose web documentation using
our new lightweight Gentoo GuideXML syntax.  This syntax is the official
format for Gentoo web documentation, and this document itself was created
using GuideXML.</i>
&lt;/abstract&gt;

&lt;!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license --&gt;
&lt;!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 --&gt;
&lt;license/&gt;

&lt;version&gt;<i>1.0</i>&lt;/version&gt;
&lt;date&gt;<i>2004-12-25</i>&lt;/date&gt;
</pre>

<p>
On the first lines, we see the requisite tag that identifies this as an XML
document and specifies its DTD. The <c>&lt;!-- &#36;Header&#36; --&gt;</c> line
will be automatically modified by the CVS server and helps to track revisions.
Next, there's a <c>&lt;guide&gt;</c> tag -- the entire guide document is
enclosed within a <c>&lt;guide&gt; &lt;/guide&gt;</c> pair. The <c>link</c>
attribute is compulsory and should preferably contain the absolute path to the
document relatively to the document root even though the file name alone will
work. It is mainly used to generate a link to a printer-friendly version of
your document. If you use a wrong value, the link to the printable version will
either not work or point to a wrong document. Translated documents <e>must</e>
specify the full path because it is also used to check whether a more recent
original document exists. The <c>lang</c> attribute should be used to specify
the language code of your document. It is used to format the date and insert
strings like "<e>Note</e>", "<e>Content</e>", etc. in the specified language.
The default is English.
</p>

<p>
Next, there's a <c>&lt;title&gt;</c> tag, used to set the title for the entire
guide document.
</p>

<p>
Then, we come to the <c>&lt;author&gt;</c> tags, which contain information
about the various authors of the document.  Each <c>&lt;author&gt;</c> tag
allows for an optional <c>title</c> element, used to specify the author's
relationship to the document (author, co-author, editor, etc.).  In this
particular example, the authors' names are enclosed in another tag -- a
<c>&lt;mail&gt;</c> tag, used to specify an email address for this particular
person.  The <c>&lt;mail&gt;</c> tag is optional and can be omitted, and no
more than one <c>&lt;author&gt;</c> element is required per guide document.
</p>

<p>
Next, we come to the <c>&lt;abstract&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;version&gt;</c> and
<c>&lt;date&gt;</c> tags, used to specify a summary of the document, the
current version number, and the current version date (in YYYY-MM-DD format)
respectively. Dates that are invalid or not in the YYYY-MM-DD format will
appear verbatim in the rendered document.
</p>

<p>
This rounds out the tags that should appear at the beginning of a guide
document.  Besides the <c>&lt;title&gt;</c> and <c>&lt;mail&gt;</c> tags, these
tags shouldn't appear anywhere else except immediately inside the
<c>&lt;guide&gt;</c> tag, and for consistency it's recommended (but not
required) that these tags appear before the content of the document.  
</p>

<p>
Finally we have the <c>&lt;license/&gt;</c> tag, used to publish the document
under the <uri link="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/">Creative
Commons - Attribution / Share Alike</uri> license as required by the <uri
link="/proj/en/gdp/doc/doc-policy.xml">Documentation Policy</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Chapters and sections</title>
<body>

<p>
Once the initial tags have been specified, you're ready to start adding the
structural elements of the document.  Guide documents are divided into
chapters, and each chapter can hold one or more sections.  Every chapter and
section has a title.  Here's an example chapter with a single section,
consisting of a paragraph.  If you append this XML to the XML in the <uri
link="#doc_chap2_pre1">previous excerpt</uri> and append a
<c>&lt;/guide&gt;</c> to the end of the file, you'll have a valid (if minimal)
guide document:
</p>

<pre caption="Minimal guide example">
&lt;chapter&gt;
&lt;title&gt;<i>This is my chapter</i>&lt;/title&gt;
&lt;section&gt;
&lt;title&gt;<i>This is section one of my chapter</i>&lt;/title&gt;
&lt;body&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
<i>This is the actual text content of my section.</i>
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/section&gt;
&lt;/chapter&gt;
</pre>

<p>
Above, I set the chapter title by adding a child <c>&lt;title&gt;</c>
element to the <c>&lt;chapter&gt;</c> element.  Then, I created a section by
adding a <c>&lt;section&gt;</c> element.  If you look inside the
<c>&lt;section&gt;</c> element, you'll see that it has two child elements -- a
<c>&lt;title&gt;</c> and a <c>&lt;body&gt;</c>.  While the <c>&lt;title&gt;</c>
is nothing new, the <c>&lt;body&gt;</c> is -- it contains the actual text
content of this particular section.  We'll look at the tags that are allowed
inside a <c>&lt;body&gt;</c> element in a bit. 
</p>

<note>
A <c>&lt;guide&gt;</c> element can contain multiple <c>&lt;chapter&gt;</c> 
elements, and a <c>&lt;chapter&gt;</c> can contain multiple 
<c>&lt;section&gt;</c> elements.  However, a <c>&lt;section&gt;</c>
element can only contain one <c>&lt;body&gt;</c> element.  
</note>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>An example &lt;body&gt;</title>
<body>

<p>
Now, it's time to learn how to mark up actual content.  Here's the XML code for
an example <c>&lt;body&gt;</c> element:
</p>

<pre caption="Example of a body element">
&lt;p&gt;
This is a paragraph.  &lt;path&gt;/etc/passwd&lt;/path&gt; is a file.
&lt;uri&gt;http://forums.gentoo.org&lt;/uri&gt; is my favorite website.
Type &lt;c&gt;ls&lt;/c&gt; if you feel like it.  I &lt;e&gt;really&lt;/e&gt; want to go to sleep now.
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;pre caption="Code Sample"&gt;
This is text output or code.
# &lt;i&gt;this is user input&lt;/i&gt;

Make HTML/XML easier to read by using selective emphasis:
&lt;foo&gt;&lt;i&gt;bar&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/foo&gt;

&lt;comment&gt;(This is how to insert an inline note into the code block)&lt;/comment&gt;
&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;note&gt;
This is a note.
&lt;/note&gt;

&lt;warn&gt;
This is a warning.
&lt;/warn&gt;

&lt;impo&gt;
This is important.
&lt;/impo&gt;
</pre>

<p>
Now, here's how the <c>&lt;body&gt;</c> element above is rendered:
</p>

<p>
This is a paragraph.  <path>/etc/passwd</path> is a file.
<uri>http://forums.gentoo.org</uri> is my favorite web site.
Type <c>ls</c> if you feel like it.  I <e>really</e> want to go to sleep now.
</p>

<pre caption="Code Sample">
This is text output or code.
# <i>this is user input</i>

Make HTML/XML easier to read by using selective emphasis:
&lt;foo&gt;<i>bar</i>&lt;/foo&gt;

<comment>(This is how to insert an inline note into the code block)</comment>
</pre>

<note>
This is a note.
</note>

<warn>
This is a warning.
</warn>

<impo>
This is important.
</impo>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>The &lt;body&gt; tags</title>
<body>

<p>
We introduced a lot of new tags in the previous section -- here's what you need
to know. The <c>&lt;p&gt;</c> (paragraph), <c>&lt;pre&gt;</c> (code block),
<c>&lt;note&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;warn&gt;</c> (warning) and <c>&lt;impo&gt;</c>
(important) tags all can contain one or more lines of text. Besides the
<c>&lt;table&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;ul&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;ol&gt;</c> and
<c>&lt;dl&gt;</c> elements (which we'll cover in just a bit), these are the
only tags that should appear immediately inside a <c>&lt;body&gt;</c> element.
Another thing -- these tags <e>should not</e> be stacked -- in other words,
don't put a <c>&lt;note&gt;</c> element inside a <c>&lt;p&gt;</c> element. As
you might guess, the <c>&lt;pre&gt;</c> element preserves its whitespace
exactly, making it well-suited for code excerpts.  You must name the
<c>&lt;pre&gt;</c> tag with a <c>caption</c> attribute:
</p>

<pre caption="Named &lt;pre&gt;">
&lt;pre caption="Output of uptime"&gt;
# &lt;i&gt;uptime&lt;/i&gt;
16:50:47 up 164 days,  2:06,  5 users,  load average: 0.23, 0.20, 0.25
&lt;/pre&gt;
</pre>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Epigraphs</title>
<body>

<p by="Anonymous student">
Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas
Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration
of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards
and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in
1790 and is still dead.
</p>

<p>
Epigraphs are sometimes used at the beginning of chapters to illustrate what is
to follow. It is simply a paragraph with a <c>by</c> attribute that contains
the signature.
</p>

<pre caption="Short epigraph">
&lt;p by="Anonymous student"&gt;
Delegates from the original 13 states formed the...
&lt;/p&gt;
</pre>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>
  &lt;path&gt;, &lt;c&gt;, &lt;i&gt;, &lt;b&gt;, &lt;e&gt;, &lt;sub&gt; and &lt;sup&gt;
</title>
<body>

<p>
The <c>&lt;path&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;c&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;b&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;e&gt;</c>,
<c>&lt;sub&gt;</c> and <c>&lt;sup&gt;</c> elements can be used inside any child
<c>&lt;body&gt;</c> tag, except for <c>&lt;pre&gt;</c>. The <c>&lt;i&gt;</c>
element can only be used inside <c>&lt;pre&gt;</c>. 
</p>

<p>
The <c>&lt;path&gt;</c> element is used to mark text that refers to an
<e>on-disk file</e> -- either an <e>absolute or relative path</e>, or a 
<e>simple filename</e>. This element is generally rendered with a mono spaced 
font to offset it from the standard paragraph type.  
</p>

<p>
The <c>&lt;c&gt;</c> element is used to mark up a <e>command</e> or <e>user
input</e>.  Think of <c>&lt;c&gt;</c> as a way to alert the reader to something
that they can type in that will perform some kind of action.  For example, all
the XML tags displayed in this document are enclosed in a <c>&lt;c&gt;</c>
element because they represent something that the user could type in that is
not a path.  By using <c>&lt;c&gt;</c> elements, you'll help your readers
quickly identify commands that they need to type in.  Also, because
<c>&lt;c&gt;</c> elements are already offset from regular text, <e>it is rarely
necessary to surround user input with double-quotes</e>. For example, don't
refer to a "<c>&lt;c&gt;</c>" element like I did in this sentence.  Avoiding
the use of unnecessary double-quotes makes a document more readable -- and 
adorable!
</p>

<p>
When you want to highlight some text as user input inside a <c>&lt;pre&gt;</c>, 
use <c>&lt;i&gt;</c> instead.
</p>

<p>
As you might have guessed, <c>&lt;b&gt;</c> is used to <b>boldface</b> some
text.
</p>

<p>
<c>&lt;e&gt;</c> is used to apply emphasis to a word or phrase; for example:
I <e>really</e> should use semicolons more often.  As you can see, this text is
offset from the regular paragraph type for emphasis.  This helps to give your
prose more <e>punch</e>!
</p>

<p>
The <c>&lt;sub&gt;</c> and <c>&lt;sup&gt;</c> elements are used to specify
<sub>subscript</sub> and <sup>superscript</sup>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>&lt;mail&gt; and &lt;uri&gt;</title>
<body>

<p>
We've taken a look at the <c>&lt;mail&gt;</c> tag earlier; it's used to link
some text with a particular email address, and takes the form <c>&lt;mail
link="foo@bar.com"&gt;Mr. Foo Bar&lt;/mail&gt;</c>. If you want to display the
email address, you can use <c>&lt;mail&gt;foo@bar.com&lt;/mail&gt;</c>, this
would be displayed as <mail>foo@bar.com</mail>.
</p>

<p>
The <c>&lt;uri&gt;</c> tag is used to point to files/locations on the Internet.
It has two forms -- the first can be used when you want to have the actual URI
displayed in the body text, such as this link to
<uri>http://forums.gentoo.org</uri>.  To create this link, I typed
<c>&lt;uri&gt;http://forums.gentoo.org&lt;/uri&gt;</c>.  The alternate form is
when you want to associate a URI with some other text -- for example, <uri
link="http://forums.gentoo.org">the Gentoo Forums</uri>.  To create <e>this</e>
link, I typed <c>&lt;uri link="http://forums.gentoo.org"&gt;the Gentoo
Forums&lt;/uri&gt;</c>. You don't need to write <c>http://www.gentoo.org/</c>
to link to other parts of the Gentoo web site. For instance, a link to the <uri
link="/doc/en/">documentation main index</uri> should be simply <c>&lt;uri
link="/doc/en/index.xml"&gt;documentation main index&lt;/uri&gt;</c>. You can
even omit <c>index.xml</c> when you link to a directory index, e.g. <c>&lt;uri
link="/doc/en/"&gt;documentation main index&lt;/uri&gt;</c>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Figures</title>
<body>

<p>
Here's how to insert a figure into a document -- <c>&lt;figure
link="mygfx.png" short="my picture" caption="my favorite picture of all
time"/&gt;</c>.  The <c>link</c> attribute points to the actual graphic image,
the <c>short</c> attribute specifies a short description (currently used for
the image's HTML <c>alt</c> attribute), and a caption.  Not too difficult
:)  We also support the standard HTML-style &lt;img src="foo.gif"/&gt; tag
for adding images without captions, borders, etc.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Tables</title>
<body>

<p>
Guide supports a simplified table syntax similar to that of HTML. To start a
table, use a <c>&lt;table&gt;</c> tag. Start a row with a <c>&lt;tr&gt;</c>
tag. However, for inserting actual table data, we <e>don't</e> support the
HTML &lt;td&gt; tag; instead, use the <c>&lt;th&gt;</c> if you are inserting a
header, and <c>&lt;ti&gt;</c> if you are inserting a normal informational
block. You can use a <c>&lt;th&gt;</c> anywhere you can use a <c>&lt;ti&gt;</c>
-- there's no requirement that <c>&lt;th&gt;</c> elements appear only in the
first row.
</p>

<p>
Besides, the table header tag (<c>&lt;th&gt;</c>) accepts the <c>colspan</c>
and <c>rowspan</c> attributes to span titles across rows, columns or both as
shown below:
</p>

<table>
  <tr>
    <th colspan="4">This title spans 4 columns</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th rowspan="3">This title spans 3 rows</th>
    <ti>Item A1</ti>
    <ti>Item A2</ti>
    <ti>Item A3</ti>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <ti>Item B1</ti>
    <th colspan="2" rowspan="2">Blocky 2x2 title</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <ti>Item C1</ti>
  </tr>
</table>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Lists</title>
<body>

<p>
To create ordered or unordered lists, simply use the XHTML-style
<c>&lt;ol&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;ul&gt;</c> and <c>&lt;li&gt;</c> tags. Lists may only
appear inside the <c>&lt;body&gt;</c> and <c>&lt;li&gt;</c> tags which means
that you can have lists inside lists. Don't forget that you are writing XML and
that you must close all tags including list items unlike in HTML.
</p>

<p>
Definition lists (<c>&lt;dl&gt;</c>) are also supported. Please note that
neither the definition term tag (<c>&lt;dt&gt;</c>) nor the definition data tag
(<c>&lt;dd&gt;</c>) accept any other block level tag such as paragraphs or
admonitions. A definition list comprises:
</p>

<dl>
  <dt><c>&lt;dl&gt;</c></dt>
  <dd>A <b>D</b>efinition <b>L</b>ist Tag containing</dd>
  <dt><c>&lt;dt&gt;</c></dt>
  <dd>Pairs of <b>D</b>efinition <b>T</b>erm Tags</dd>
  <dt><c>&lt;dd&gt;</c></dt>
  <dd>and <b>D</b>efinition <b>D</b>ata Tags</dd>
</dl>

<p>
The following list copied from <uri
link="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/lists.html">w3.org</uri> shows
that a definition list can contain ordered and unordered lists. It may not
contain another definition list though.
</p>

<dl>
  <dt><b>The ingredients:</b></dt>
  <dd>
    <ul>
      <li>100 g. flour</li>
      <li>10 g. sugar</li>
      <li>1 cup water</li>
      <li>2 eggs</li>
      <li>salt, pepper</li>
    </ul>
  </dd>
  <dt><b>The procedure:</b></dt>
  <dd>
    <ol>
      <li>Mix dry ingredients thoroughly</li>
      <li>Pour in wet ingredients</li>
      <li>Mix for 10 minutes</li>
      <li>Bake for one hour at 300 degrees</li>
    </ol>
  </dd>
  <dt><b>Notes:</b></dt>
  <dd>The recipe may be improved by adding raisins</dd>
</dl>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Intra-document references</title>
<body>

<p>
Guide makes it really easy to reference other parts of the document using
hyperlinks.  You can create a link pointing to <uri link="#doc_chap1">Chapter
One</uri> by typing <c>&lt;uri link="#doc_chap1"&gt;Chapter
One&lt;/uri&gt;</c>.  To point to <uri link="#doc_chap1_sect2">section two of
Chapter One</uri>, type <c>&lt;uri link="#doc_chap1_sect2"&gt;section two of
Chapter One&lt;/uri&gt;</c>.  To refer to figure 3 in chapter 1, type <c>&lt;uri
link="#doc_chap1_fig3"&gt;figure 1.3&lt;/uri&gt;</c>.  Or, to refer to <uri 
link="#doc_chap2_pre2">code listing 2 in chapter 2</uri>, type <c>&lt;uri 
link="#doc_chap2_pre2"&gt;code listing 2.2&lt;/uri&gt;</c>.
</p>

<p>
However, some guides change often and using such "counting" can lead to broken
links. In order to cope with this, you can define a name for a
<c>&lt;chapter&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;section&gt;</c> or a <c>&lt;tr&gt;</c> by using
the <c>id</c> attribute, and then point to that attribute, like this:
</p>

<pre caption="Using the id attribute">
&lt;chapter id="foo"&gt;
&lt;title&gt;This is foo!&lt;/title&gt;
...
&lt;p&gt;
More information can be found in the &lt;uri link="#foo"&gt;foo chapter&lt;/uri&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
</pre>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Disclaimers and obsolete documents</title>
<body>

<p>
A disclaimer attribute can be applied to guides and handbooks to display a predefined disclaimer at the top of the document. The available disclaimers are:
</p>

<ul>
  <li>
    <b>articles</b> is used for <uri link="/doc/en/articles/">republished
    articles</uri>
  </li>
  <li>
    <b>draft</b> is used to indicate a document is still being worked on and
    should not be considered official
  </li>
  <li>
    <b>oldbook</b> is used on old handbooks to indicate they are not maintained
    anymore
  </li>
  <li><b>obsolete</b> is used to mark a document as obsolete.</li>
</ul>

<p>
When marking a document as obsolete, you might want to add a link to a new
version. The <c>redirect</c> attribute does just that. The user might be
automatically redirected to the new page but you should not rely on that
behaviour.
</p>

<pre caption="Disclaimer sample">
&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd"&gt;
&lt;!-- &#36;Header&#36; --&gt;

&lt;guide link="/doc/en/gentoo-x86-install.xml" disclaimer="obsolete" redirect="/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml"&gt;
&lt;title>Gentoo x86 Installation Guide&lt;/title&gt;

&lt;author title="Author"&gt;
...
</pre>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>Coding Style</title>
<section>
<title>Introduction</title>
<body>

<p>
Since all Gentoo Documentation is a joint effort and several people will
most likely change existing documentation, a coding style is needed.
A coding style contains two sections. The first one is regarding
internal coding - how the XML-tags are placed. The second one is
regarding the content - how not to confuse the reader.
</p>

<p>
Both sections are described next.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Internal Coding Style</title>
<body>

<p>
<b>Newlines</b> must be placed immediately after <e>every</e>
GuideXML-tag (both opening as closing), except for:
<c>&lt;version&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;date&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;title&gt;</c>, 
<c>&lt;th&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;ti&gt;</c>,
<c>&lt;li&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;i&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;e&gt;</c>,
<c>&lt;uri&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;path&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;b&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;c&gt;</c>, 
<c>&lt;comment&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;mail&gt;</c>.
</p>

<p>
<b>Blank lines</b> must be placed immediately after <e>every</e>
<c>&lt;body&gt;</c> (opening tag only) and before <e>every</e>
<c>&lt;chapter&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;p&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;table&gt;</c>, 
<c>&lt;author&gt;</c> (set), <c>&lt;pre&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;ul&gt;</c>, 
<c>&lt;ol&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;warn&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;note&gt;</c> and 
<c>&lt;impo&gt;</c> (opening tags only).
</p>

<p>
<b>Word-wrapping</b> must be applied at 80 characters except inside
<c>&lt;pre&gt;</c>. You may only deviate from this rule when there is no other
choice (for instance when a URL exceeds the maximum amount of characters).  The
editor must then wrap whenever the first whitespace occurs. You should try to
keep the <e>rendered</e> content of <c>&lt;pre&gt;</c> elements within 80
columns to help console users.
</p>

<p>
<b>Indentation</b> may not be used, except with the XML-constructs of which the
parent XML-tags are <c>&lt;tr&gt;</c> (from <c>&lt;table&gt;</c>),
<c>&lt;ul&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;ol&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;dl&gt;</c>, and
<c>&lt;author&gt;</c>. If indentation is used, it <e>must</e> be two spaces for
each indentation. That means <e>no tabs</e> and <e>not</e> more spaces.
Besides, tabs are not allowed in GuideXML documents.
</p>

<p>
In case word-wrapping happens in <c>&lt;ti&gt;</c>, <c>&lt;th&gt;</c>,
<c>&lt;li&gt;</c> or <c>&lt;dd&gt;</c>constructs, indentation must be used for
the content.
</p>

<p>
An example for indentation is:
</p>

<pre caption="Indentation Example">
&lt;table&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
  &lt;th&gt;Foo&lt;/th&gt;
  &lt;th&gt;Bar&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
  &lt;ti&gt;This is an example for indentation&lt;/ti&gt;
  &lt;ti&gt;
    In case text cannot be shown within an 80-character wide line, you
    must use indentation if the parent tag allows it
  &lt;/ti&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
  &lt;li&gt;First option&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;li&gt;Second option&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</pre>

<p>
<b>Attributes</b> may not have spaces in between the attribute, the "=" mark,
and the attribute value. As an example:
</p>

<pre caption="Attributes">
<comment>Wrong  :</comment>     &lt;pre caption = "Attributes"&gt;
<comment>Correct:</comment>     &lt;pre caption="Attributes"&gt;
</pre>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>External Coding Style</title>
<body>

<p>
Inside tables (<c>&lt;table&gt;</c>) and listings (<c>&lt;ul&gt;</c>,
<c>&lt;ol&gt;</c>) and <c>&lt;dl&gt;</c>, periods (".") should not be used
unless multiple sentences are used. In that case, every sentence should end
with a period (or other reading marks).
</p>

<p>
Every sentence, including those inside tables and listings, should start
with a capital letter.
</p>

<pre caption="Periods and capital letters">
&lt;ul&gt;
  &lt;li&gt;No period&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;li&gt;With period. Multiple sentences, remember?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</pre>

<p>
Code Listings should <e>always</e> have a <c>caption</c>.
</p>

<p>
Try to use <c>&lt;uri&gt;</c> with the <c>link</c> attribute as much as
possible. In other words, the <uri link="http://forums.gentoo.org">Gentoo
Forums</uri> is preferred over <uri>http://forums.gentoo.org</uri>.
</p>

<p>
When you comment something inside a <c>&lt;pre&gt;</c> construct, use
<c>&lt;comment&gt;</c> and parentheses or the comment marker for the language
that is being used (<c>#</c> for bash scripts and many other things, <c>//</c>
for C code, etc.) Also place the comment <e>before</e> the subject of the
comment.
</p>

<pre caption="Comment example">
<comment>(Substitute "john" with your user name)</comment>
# <i>id john</i>
</pre>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>Handbook Format</title>
<section>
<title>Guide vs Book</title>
<body>

<p>
For high-volume documentation, such as the <uri
link="/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1">Installation Instructions</uri>, a
broader format was needed. We designed a GuideXML-compatible enhancement that
allows us to write modular and multi-page documentation.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Main File</title>
<body>

<p>
The first change is the need for a "master" document. This document contains no
real content, but links to the individual documentation modules. The syntaxis
doesn't differ much from GuideXML:
</p>

<pre caption="Example book usage">
&lt;?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?&gt;
&lt;!DOCTYPE book SYSTEM "/dtd/book.dtd"&gt;
&lt;!-- &#36;Header&#36; --&gt;

&lt;<i>book</i> link="example.xml"&gt;
&lt;title&gt;Example Book Usage&lt;/title&gt;

&lt;author...&gt;
  ...
&lt;/author&gt;

&lt;abstract&gt;
  ...
&lt;/abstract&gt;

&lt;!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license --&gt;
&lt;!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 --&gt;
&lt;license/&gt;

&lt;version&gt;...&lt;/version&gt;
&lt;date&gt;...&lt;/date&gt;
</pre>

<p>
So far no real differences (except for the <c>&lt;book&gt;</c> instead of
<c>&lt;guide&gt;</c> tag). Instead of starting with the individual
<c>&lt;chapter&gt;</c>'s, you define a <c>&lt;part&gt;</c>, which is the
equivalent of a separate part in a book:
</p>

<pre caption="Defining a part">
&lt;part&gt;
&lt;title&gt;Part One&lt;/title&gt;
&lt;abstract&gt;
  ...
&lt;/abstract&gt;

<comment>(Defining the several chapters)</comment>
&lt;/part&gt;
</pre>

<p>
Each part is accompanied by a <c>&lt;title&gt;</c> and an 
<c>&lt;abstract&gt;</c> which gives a small introduction to the part.
</p>

<p>
Inside each part, you define the individual <c>&lt;chapter&gt;</c>'s. Each
chapter <e>must</e> be a separate document. As a result it is no surprise that a
special tag (<c>&lt;include&gt;</c>) is added to allow including the separate
document.
</p>

<pre caption="Defining a chapter">
&lt;chapter&gt;
&lt;title&gt;Chapter One&lt;/title&gt;
&lt;abstract&gt;
  This is a small explanation on chapter one.
&lt;/abstract&gt;

  &lt;include href="path/to/chapter-one.xml"/&gt;

&lt;/chapter&gt;
</pre>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Designing the Individual Chapters</title>
<body>

<p>
The content of an individual chapter is structured as follows:
</p>

<pre caption="Chapter Syntax">
&lt;?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?&gt;
&lt;!DOCTYPE sections SYSTEM "/dtd/book.dtd"&gt;
&lt;!-- &#36;Header&#36; --&gt;

&lt;!--  The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license --&gt;
&lt;!--  See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 --&gt;

&lt;sections&gt;

&lt;version&gt;...&lt;/version&gt;
&lt;date&gt;...&lt;/date&gt;

<comment>(Define the several &lt;section&gt; and &lt;subsection&gt;)</comment>

&lt;/sections&gt;
</pre>

<p>
Inside each chapter you can define <c>&lt;section&gt;</c>'s (equivalent of
<c>&lt;chapter&gt;</c> in a Guide) and <c>&lt;subsection&gt;</c>'s (equivalent
of <c>&lt;section&gt;</c> in a Guide).
</p>

<p>
Each individual chapter should have its own date and version elements. The
latest date of all chapters and master document will be displayed when a user
browses through all parts of the book.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>Resources</title>
<section>
<title>Start writing</title>
<body>

<p>
Guide has been specially designed to be "lean and mean" so that developers can
spend more time writing documentation and less time learning the actual XML
syntax.  Hopefully, this will allow developers who aren't unusually "doc-savvy"
to start writing quality Gentoo documentation.  You might be interested
in our <uri link="/proj/en/gdp/doc/doc-tipsntricks.xml">Documentation
Development Tips &amp; Tricks</uri>. If you'd like to help (or have any
questions about guide), please post a message to the <mail
link="gentoo-doc@gentoo.org">gentoo-doc mailing list</mail> stating what you'd
like to tackle. Have fun!
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>
</guide>