| Author |
Topic |
Dmian
Gallente
Gallenterrorisme |
Posted - 2008.10.16 09:37:00 - [ 1]
Edited by: Dmian on 16/10/2008 09:39:43
If you happen to read the Backstory section, you probably realized that there's a PDF version of it, compiled a long time ago by a player nicknamed "turnschuh."
As I started to read the Chronicles, I used this PDF, because I found it was a very convenient format to read from.
Unluckyly, at the rate that CCP produces chronicles the PDF became terribly outdated in a little time.
In my day to day work I have to disseminate information in several formats. In one of the projects I develop for and mantain we use XML and XSLT to publish information. Those of you familiar with this language may know the possibilities offered by XSLT, like for example, transforming a XML document into HTML, PDF or plain text.
So I decided to create a quick & dirty XML ontology of the backstory, in order to later make a couple of XSLTs to transform it to PDF and/or HTML and have an always up-to-date version of the stories in that section.
Right now I'm finishing the clean-up of the chronicles (I'm 32 chronicles away, out of 155) and then I'll add the rest of the content (basically, the same content that was compiled by turnschuh.)
When I finish that I'll need to create a DTD/schema to validate the file and then I can start creating the stylesheets to convert the document to other formats (I'm specially interested in PDF, so I'll have to use XSL-FO.)
Unluckily, since this is copyrighted material I can't put online the populated file without authorization, but later today, when I get home, I'll put an unpopulated version for you to see (if any of you have XSML/XSLT knowledge I'll greatly appreciate if you can point any errors you see in the ontology, specially since I created it on the go.)
I hope you like the idea, and I'd really like to have the opinion of someone from CCP, and specially if they can give me authorization to put online the populated XML file.
Regards. |
Dragonaire
Caldari
Corax.
PURgE Alliance |
Posted - 2008.10.18 18:18:00 - [ 2]
Edited by: Dragonaire on 18/10/2008 18:19:11
Just a suggestion why not use a DOCBook format then no real need to re-invent the wheel to output it in everything from plain text, html, or PDFs? For that matter would be nice if CCP did that to start with should make it easier for them to use it and give players more options about how they view it too. Know it would be a little extra work to convert the already written stuff but going forward it should be easier for a project like yours. Would also make it much easier for them to publish a book from them if they should decide too.
That's my two ISK on it and good luck with the project. |
Dmian
Gallente
Gallenterrorisme |
Posted - 2008.10.19 01:15:00 - [ 3]
 Originally by: Dragonaire
Just a suggestion why not use a DOCBook format then no real need to re-invent the wheel to output it in everything from plain text, html, or PDFs? For that matter would be nice if CCP did that to start with should make it easier for them to use it and give players more options about how they view it too. Know it would be a little extra work to convert the already written stuff but going forward it should be easier for a project like yours. Would also make it much easier for them to publish a book from them if they should decide too.
That's my two ISK on it and good luck with the project.
Well, thanks for the tip.  The truth is that the biggest effort is putting the content in XML format. Then, if you want a custom XML or some pre-defined ontology is really trivial, because you can convert one XML to another using XSLT. If I find in the future that DOCBook is suitable for the project, I can create a XSLT to transform the XML to DOCBook. As to why I didn't look for an already defined ontology: I work with one pre-defined ontology at work, and my experience with it is that sometimes it's more complicated than creating your own ontology. Pre-defined ontologies are like javascript frameworks, probably save you some work, but are difficult to tame and do exactly what you want with it. But as I told you, right now the bigger problem is putting the content in XML format. The rest will be the fun part  |
Dragonaire
Caldari
Corax.
PURgE Alliance |
Posted - 2008.10.22 17:37:00 - [ 4]
Yeah I know about learning new tools to make things easier just was thinking something with an already published open format that others might also have experience with might be a good idea. Would be really helpful if CCP was to change things on their end and make it available in it. You're right once it's in some kind of XML format it will be much easier to convert to something else. I'll almost bet that what ever framework CCP uses to manage their web site uses XML in a database and it shouldn't be that hard for them to output it in some XML form to us also. Just a hint for anyone at CCP that might read this ;) |
Dmian
Gallente
Gallenterrorisme |
Posted - 2008.10.27 16:08:00 - [ 5]
Originally by: Dragonaire
Yeah I know about learning new tools to make things easier just was thinking something with an already published open format that others might also have experience with might be a good idea. Would be really helpful if CCP was to change things on their end and make it available in it. You're right once it's in some kind of XML format it will be much easier to convert to something else. I'll almost bet that what ever framework CCP uses to manage their web site uses XML in a database and it shouldn't be that hard for them to output it in some XML form to us also. Just a hint for anyone at CCP that might read this ;)
Well, in any case, I have my own version.  Been busy lately, so I don't know if I will end it this week. |
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