VPIEJ-L Discussion Archives
May 1992
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 2 May 1992 16:13:23 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: "Allen Renear, Brown Univ/CIS,
401-863-7312" <allen@brownvm.bitnet>
Subject: Re: Appearances are something
>From: Gess Shankar <gess%knex.gwinnett.com@mathcs.emory.edu>
> James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu> writes:
>> How do I balance the need to preserve the quality of the presentation
>> with the need to make the text searchable?
> Why not generate two versions of the document? One plain ascii and the
> other in a formatted fashion? [...]
Whatever the immediate practical solution, are we agreed on what we
should do in principle?
supply 2 things: 1) An SGML text instance and DTD
2) A DSSL style sheet
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 May 1992 08:41:06 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Comments: Resent-From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1>
Comments: Originally-From: "Allen Renear, Brown Univ/CIS,
401-863-7312" <allen@brownvm.bitnet>
From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: Re: Appearances are something
James Powell >>> Systems Support and Development, University Libraries, VPI&SU
>>> JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU (or) JPOWELL@VTTCF.CC.VT.EDU
>>> Owner of VPIEJ-L, a discussion list for Electronic Journals
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>From: Gess Shankar <gess%knex.gwinnett.com@mathcs.emory.edu>
> James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu> writes:
>> How do I balance the need to preserve the quality of the presentation
>> with the need to make the text searchable?
> Why not generate two versions of the document? One plain ascii and the
> other in a formatted fashion? [...]
*Whatever the immediate practical solution, are we agreed on what we
*should do in principle?
*supply 2 things: 1) An SGML text instance and DTD
* 2) A DSSL style sheet
How many electronic journals are currently doing this?? Who is currently
knowledgeable enough about SGML to do this quickly, to train editors, to
post a product? This really needs to begin with the authors, who are currently
happily churning out their articles in Microsoft Word (Mac or PC), WordPerfect
or several other wordprocessors on other platforms. Otherwise, we put a lot
of our time into manipulating the documents, spending lots of money. I think
a good interim solution is to choose a common graphical format and provide
two versions of your journal: an ASCII text version with graphics in separate
files: .gif, .tiff, .eps, etc. and a full PostScript version (or a collection
of tiff files containing the scanned pages). At a later date, the ASCII/image
hybrid could be updated to SGML.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 May 1992 11:38:26 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Guedon Jean-Claude <guedon@ere.umontreal.ca>
Subject: Re: Appearances are something
In-Reply-To: <9205041249.AA23568@condor.CC.UMontreal.CA>; from "James Powell"
at May 4, 92 8:41 am
>
> James Powell >>> Systems Support and Development, University Libraries, VPI&SU
> >>> JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU (or) JPOWELL@VTTCF.CC.VT.EDU
> >>> Owner of VPIEJ-L, a discussion list for Electronic Journals
>
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> >From: Gess Shankar <gess%knex.gwinnett.com@mathcs.emory.edu>
> > James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu> writes:
> >> How do I balance the need to preserve the quality of the presentation
> >> with the need to make the text searchable?
> > Why not generate two versions of the document? One plain ascii and the
> > other in a formatted fashion? [...]
>
> *Whatever the immediate practical solution, are we agreed on what we
> *should do in principle?
>
> *supply 2 things: 1) An SGML text instance and DTD
> * 2) A DSSL style sheet
>
> How many electronic journals are currently doing this?? Who is currently
> knowledgeable enough about SGML to do this quickly, to train editors, to
> post a product? This really needs to begin with the authors, who are
currently
> happily churning out their articles in Microsoft Word (Mac or PC), WordPerfect
> or several other wordprocessors on other platforms. Otherwise, we put a lot
> of our time into manipulating the documents, spending lots of money. I think
> a good interim solution is to choose a common graphical format and provide
> two versions of your journal: an ASCII text version with graphics in separate
> files: .gif, .tiff, .eps, etc. and a full PostScript version (or a collection
> of tiff files containing the scanned pages). At a later date, the ASCII/image
> hybrid could be updated to SGML.
>
I believe Gess Shankar is essentially right. The distance between emerging
standards such as SGML, ODA and the like, and the average user of a word
processor is still too great. Besides, which standard will eventually come
to dominate world markets?
Our own e-journal project is working on pragmatic solutions, close to the
user. Macintosh and IBM are the posited platforms for the moment. MS-Word
is the word processor for the Mac universe, while WordPerfect is favored
in the MS-DOS and Windows environments. PostScript and Ascii will also
be supported, but ascii is not satisfactory as soon as you intend (as we
do) to use languages other than English, with diacriticals.
For those wishing to explore our journal (Surfaces), ftp to
harfang.cc.umontreal.ca according to the usual anonymous procedure.
cd to Surfaces/Articles/Macintosh and get the articles you want there.
MS-DOS articles will be ready before or on June 1st.
One article (Esch) requires retrieving photographs in the Gif format.
They are, accordingly, located in the Gif directory.
Best,
Jean-Claude Guedon
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 4 May 1992 17:04:42 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Editors of PMC <pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet>
Subject: Re: Appearances are something
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon,
4 May 1992 11:38:26 EDT from <guedon@ere.umontreal.ca>
_Postmodern Culture_ is seriously exploring the possibility of moving to
SGML-based production and distribution. This doesn't mean that we would
cut off ascii production--for the time being, ascii output could be
obtained from an SGML document for Listserv distribution. Based on what
I've been able to gather from various conferences and from reading, SGML
has the best chance of emerging as the standard markup system for electronic
text; the makers of major word-processing programs are (some of them, at
least) working on SGML compatibility, and there are independent software
companies working on SGML filters (back and forth from various word-processing
programs). It might, in fact, be easier to go from _Surfaces_' word-processor
files to SGML than from ascii to SGML, in the future: ascii will have to
be marked up from scratch, whereas wp files will contain at least rudimentary
information about document appearance and structure. Perhaps the interim
solution is to use word-processing software to produce ascii, save the wp
files for future conversion (and/or make them available by ftp, as _Surfaces_
does/will do), and distribute ascii (at least for Listserv-based journals).
John Unsworth
Co-editor, _Postmodern Culture_
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 May 1992 16:29:02 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Guedon Jean-Claude <guedon@ere.umontreal.ca>
Subject: Re: Appearances are something
In-Reply-To: <9205042113.AA26690@condor.CC.UMontreal.CA>; from "Editors of
PMC" at May 4, 92 5:04 pm
>
> _Postmodern Culture_ is seriously exploring the possibility of moving to
> SGML-based production and distribution. This doesn't mean that we would
> cut off ascii production--for the time being, ascii output could be
> obtained from an SGML document for Listserv distribution. Based on what
> I've been able to gather from various conferences and from reading, SGML
> has the best chance of emerging as the standard markup system for electronic
> text; the makers of major word-processing programs are (some of them, at
> least) working on SGML compatibility, and there are independent software
> companies working on SGML filters (back and forth from various word-processing
> programs). It might, in fact, be easier to go from _Surfaces_' word-processor
> files to SGML than from ascii to SGML, in the future: ascii will have to
> be marked up from scratch, whereas wp files will contain at least rudimentary
> information about document appearance and structure. Perhaps the interim
> solution is to use word-processing software to produce ascii, save the wp
> files for future conversion (and/or make them available by ftp, as _Surfaces_
> does/will do), and distribute ascii (at least for Listserv-based journals).
>
> John Unsworth
> Co-editor, _Postmodern Culture_
>
I am most heartened by John Unsworth's comments, of course, but there remains
one major question with regard to SGML, if I am not wrong: what about
graphics and especially photos. We at _Surfaces_ handle this with the
Gif format, but a unified solution would be better. And what about ODA?
By the way, the _Surfaces_ wp file for MS-DOS will be ready before June 1st.
I certainly will keep this list posted. Eighteen texts in MS-Word for the
Macintosh are already available and the constitute volume 1 of our new journal.
Nine photos going with the Esch article are also available in the Gif directory.
Surfaces is available by FTP at harfang.cc.umontreal.ca
Best,
Jean-Claude Guedon
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 May 1992 16:46:14 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Editors of PMC <pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet>
Subject: Re: Appearances are something
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue,
5 May 1992 16:29:02 EDT from <guedon@ere.umontreal.ca>
In re: Jean-Claude Guedon's question about graphics in SGML files, the
answer is that non-text objects (i.e., graphical images) can be incorporated
into the display of SGML documents. The images themselves are not SGML-
marked, but SGML documents can indicate placement and display of images.
John Unsworth
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 5 May 1992 22:51:03 +0200
Reply-To: enag@ifi.uio.no
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Comments: Warning -- original Sender: tag was enag@IFI.UIO.NO
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Subject: Re: Appearances are something
In-Reply-To: <199205052036.AAifi01033@ifi.uio.no> (05 May 1992 16:29:02
-0400)
| I am most heartened by John Unsworth's comments, of course, but there
| remains one major question with regard to SGML, if I am not wrong: what
| about graphics and especially photos. We at _Surfaces_ handle this with
| the Gif format, but a unified solution would be better. And what about
| ODA?
I don't understand what a "unified" solution between text and graphics
would mean, since these are radically different data formats at the very
least. SGML declares objects (which it calls entities) in a document
type declaration which are then referenced in the document. These
declarations are open-ended, in that you can declare anything you want.
In practice, one would choose a fairly, if not completely, standardized
format, and GIF and JPEG are the biggest contenders for that position.
ODA does the same thing, only it has predefined content types, which
will most probably not include the popular de-facto standards if the
past is any guide. In ODA everything is objects of their own type,
while in SGML, you have source document which refers to other objects as
needed. The interchange and production of ODA documents requires very
special software, while SGML documents can be built from parts already
existing. Getting any real use out of both ODA and SGML documents will
require some special software, but the text format of SGML documents
will enable us to make and use tools for more tasks than the specialized
ODA environment would require.
My opinion is that ODA is totally unfit for electronic publication at
its present stage of maturity and standardization, with new content
types and various additions and extended features being added every
month, partly because the world is developing quite rapidly, and ODA
needs to be changed at every major step. SGML was designed much for the
needs of the (electronic) publication industry, and therefore is able to
adopt by reference data notations and formats as they emerge.
Best regards,
</erik@naggum.no></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></guedon@ere.umontreal.ca></pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></guedon@ere.umontreal.ca></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></guedon@ere.umontreal.ca></pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu></gess%knex.gwinnett.com@mathcs.emory.edu></guedon@ere.umontreal.ca></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu></gess%knex.gwinnett.com@mathcs.emory.edu></jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet></allen@brownvm.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1></jpowell@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu></gess%knex.gwinnett.com@mathcs.emory.edu></allen@brownvm.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>