[NTLUG:Discuss] good "book" format for html?

[Robert Pearson]

Kevin Brannen wrote:
> I'm looking for a good format to hold books that are in HTML, something
> that can hold the HTML, including any graphics (or other files) that
> support it.  If I were in the MS world, the CHM format would probably be
> what I wanted.  But, I want to use this in Linux, so an "open standard"
> is really what I'm searching for.
> 
> Can anyone recommend anything they've seen, read about, whatever?
> 
> BTW, I'm really not searching for docbook and the other formats that
> would require me to convert the HTML into something else.  I like HTML
> because of it's simplicity and univerality.  Of course, this may all be
> for naught if there is no decent reader (and generator), but I got
> programming skilz :-) so I could create that if I can find a good enough
> standard.  Thoughts?


I'm replying because I am looking for a tool to use as a framework for
a person writing books, articles, technical papers and documentation
in general.
In one case it would be strictly private and in other cases it might
be collaborative.
A Wiki looks like it would be just great for the collaborative process
but I have run into slow sledding on the private Wiki. By private I
mean it would run on a desktop machine with no Web server running or
installed. Perhaps all Wiki's require a Web server. I'm still
resolving that. My preference it that the tool be written in Python.
When I was working with SCCS every day I used my own version of SCCS
as a document management tool. I had "how-to" procedures and "Help"
for everything I ever wrote, which was a lot. All this text was stored
in SCCS. Now I want to write a book. A CVS repository is overkill. A
lightweight CVS might work.

I did a Google for "linux+chm+viewer" and one of the interesting
responses I got was at---
=======================================================
http://www.skykiller.com/blog/archives/2004_07.html
=======================================================
Contests of Interest are---
July 06, 2004
CHM Viewer for UNIX

As we know, .chm files are compressed HTML files. Here're two free chm
viewers on SourceForge:

xCHM - the UNIX .chm viewer

    xCHM is a .chm viewer for UNIX (Linux, *BSD, Solaris), written by
Razvan Cojocaru.
    Success stories of xCHM on Mac OS X have also been received, and
apparently xCHM even works if compiled under the Cygwin environment in
Windows.

    xCHM uses Jed Wing's CHMLIB for general purpose .chm access, and
wxGTK for the GUI.

arCHMage is another chm viewer which written in python and has an
embended http server so once the .chm file is extracted to a directory
we can use a borwser to view the contants.

arCHMage also based on CHMLIB.
Posted by johnskiller at 10:32 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
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I also got a bunch of hits for "php-doc-chm". One in particular at---
http://us2.php.net/docs-echm.php

I am sure you have already looked at this. I'm still sorting out how
all this works.
My need is different from yours in that my base Information needs to
be in text but there will be graphics and math formulas to be stored.
Hmmm! Write in HTML and have a parser format it? I'll have to think
about that.

Thanks,

Robert