Re: Docmentation/FAQs

[David Tangye <..hidden..>]

On Thu, 2006-09-21 at 22:05 -0700, Chris Travers wrote:
> There are plenty of good reasons to use LaTeX for the templates,
> especialy where formatting is incredibly sensitive (for example,
> printing checks),
Your insight into latex and its usage in the system makes me think that
there may bbe little reason to consider changing from it for system
reports, cheques etc.

However documentation/help is a completely different issue in my
opinion. Programmers can get clued up on latex, perl whatever. Others
who dont have time or inclination to learn these languages can surely
contribute ideas and content to documentation using a totally different
and simpler-to-use technnology? This thread is about the documentation
side. I would not mix it with the system side, ie the ability to produce
cheques etc. I see them as quite seperate animals.

> The biggest problem is that the current templates,
> like the rest of the software, suffer from an acute lack of planning
Probably agree.
> and an unwillingness to really leverage the technology.
Probably disagree; as per my argument above, leveraging is a small
consideration in this respect.
> 
> There are two sides to the current issue:
> 1)  What do we use for large printed documents.  Personally, I think
> that LaTeX is an extremely powerful aspect to this solution that ought
> to be leveraged wherever appropriate.
I guess my thought is that this is not so appropriate here.

> 2)  Do we use an XML-based templating system (there are several
> options for pipelines, but they eventually have to convert to
> Postscript and/or PDF for the formatting reasons you mention) or do we
> stick with the current system?
For the system, I would definitely be considering XML based technology.

> In the end, my own hope is that LedgerSMB will become a piece of
> infrastructure rather than a standalone app.  After all, that is what
> ERP promises.
Wow. That's a whole brave new world/topic right there ...
> To do this, I think it is best if it can be as open of
> a project as possible not only wrt community development but also in
> interoperating with other programs.
... maybe needs a whole new mail list "Son of LedgerSMB" :-). Forget my
Versio 2 ideas, this is version 3.