Hello Jonas,

Jonas Baggett <jonas17b@gmail.com> writes:

> Thank you for the suggestion. I was first thinking about incrementally
> creating a custom format that evolves as features are implemented. And
> for translating the custom format into a backend format, I was
> thinking of creating files with translations rules for each backend so
> that anyone can add support for a new backend or update an existing
> backend to add more feature or to make it compatible with a newer
> version of the backend, without needing to modify the editor code. A
> translation rule is e.g. start_section[title=<the_title>,
> back_ground_color=<the_color>] => @startsection(title ->
> {<the_title>}, bg_color -> {<the_color>}) which will convert a start
> section command of the document format into the same command for a
> backend format.

Skribilo uses an abstract syntax internally and the different output
engines process that into the target language.  In essence each engine
is the collection of rules appropriate to that target.

> At first glance that way seems to be the easiest way for me, but
> Skribilo looks interesting as a fallback option, although I find its
> syntax to be weird, if I find out that the idea with translation rules
> isn't working as expected.

There are two input syntaxes, a simple one a bit like Emacs' outline
mode and the more Scheme-like syntax.  The former has limitations
documented on the Skribilo web-site, the latter is far more complete.  I
an guessing it is the Scheme-like syntax that you find weird.  I have
played around a a little this week on using Wisp
(http://www.draketo.de/proj/wisp/) and Readable
(http://readable.sourceforge.net/) to write Skribilo in a less
parenthesis rich style.  Although not able to complete the work owing to
time constraints, it looks acheivavble.

Cheers,
Roger

Off topic
========

My goal would be to have an output ConTeXt (or Lout) document, with
fallback to LaTeX or XML if a publisher insists.  If this could be
combined with Emacs org-mode to document, store and run (or compile-run)
source code, then a very complete and versatile system for reproducible
reasearch could be constructed.

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