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What comes with the so-called SchemaDoc Environment ? What can I do with that environment ?
SchemaDoc comes will all the necessary items to build a working documenting environment : Java programs, transformation and formatting XSL stylesheets, documentation and goodies.
What else would be needed to actually create, modify, maintain a documentation of a model using SchemaDoc ? Nothing more than a basic text editor !
In real world situations, most users will use specialized or enhanced tools to edit both the XML Schema they are documenting (internal documentation) and the SchemaDoc compliant document (external documentation). SchemaDoc does not imply one tool or another, it will adapt to the users way of making.
Once users have written - by any means - an XML Schema description of a model and a SchemaDoc compliant source document documenting that model, they can process both through SchemaDoc tools. They will get back documentation quality information and an enriched published document that integrates information inferred from the XML Schema and source document contents.
An XML Schema description of the SchemaDoc model. This normalized description can than be used to make of it all a model is useful for. One most immediate use will be to integrate this description in the user's editing environment to help writing SchemaDoc conforming documents.
A documentation generator. Giving an SchemaDoc conforming document and a XML Schema model, this software tool will produce published versions of the documentation : XHTML, PDF, Word, etc. It also reports quality information in terms of reliability of the documentation.
A DTD generator. It translates a XML Schema description of a model into a DTD description. This translation is smart enough to ensure that the SchemaDoc documentation of the Schema also documents the DTD.
Interfaces. A graphical interface and command line front-ends are provided to run the environment and publish documentations.
The environment relies on pre existing technologies implemented by pieces of software (DocBook implementation, XSL processor, etc.). For compatibility requirements (an convenience), the latter are provided with SchemaDoc.
SchemaDoc documentation. This is what you are reading or listening to. Of course, this documentation documents the XML Schema description of SchemaDoc. Thanks to the flexibility of the SchemaDoc model, this documentation also serves as user's guide, a reference manual and a developers documentation. Through the intense use of SchemaDoc expressing power, this documentation is also a comprehensive example of SchemaDoc use.
Samples. Although a comprehensive example demonstrates the capabilities of a formalism, simpler examples help understanding the basics, at the early stages of the handling of a tool.
Members of the SchemaDoc community have built some kind of "tools" to help them use SchemaDoc, in their software environment. For instance, most documentation writers will customize their favorite XML editors to integrate the SchemaDoc Schema. Therefore, the environment comes with configuration files and instructions to ease the use of SchemaDoc with some software components.
These components not being part of SchemaDoc, any help provided for these tools is just provided as goodies. They have no status in the SchemaDoc project (not yet). As the SchemaDoc community grows, we can expect that many such goodies will be shared among the community. Helping users to share experience will then be a major concern for the project.
SchemaDoc tools need a system to be homed. Many of these tools rely on Java Runtime Environment (JRE) which is considered as a part of the homing system (see requirements).
The SchemaDoc environment does not pretend to be an Integrated Documentation Environment. As a consequence, It does not even provide any XML editor and does not depend on any specific editor.
The main dependency of the present version of the SchemaDoc environment ensues from the use of XMLSpy XML Editor outputs. This software is not used for its editing capabilities but for its integrated graphics generation engine.
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| 2. Installing SchemaDoc environment | 4. Getting started |
