Subject: [Tools-discuss] Re: Just a quick question ...

From: Thomas Morin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 18:32:53 +0100

Bill Fenner:
> 
> JP Vasseur:
> [...]
> >Also, any way to "track changes" ?
> 
> Unfortunately, no.  That's on the "to investigate" list but would require
> a great deal of implementation.

Tracking changes is one thing, integrating/filtering them is also
important. Maybe your "tracking changes" was encompassing both.

I've practiced once integrating a draft revision that was sent to me in
xml2rfc format.  Converting to txt and using rfcdiff can give a quick
overview of the changes. Then using xmldiff can help see the detailed
changes, and then xmlpatch can be used to apply relevant pieces of the
patch.  But this is rather cumbersome to do by hand.

What can be done also is using <cref> tags : just put into them the
content that's being discussed, the 'source' attribute can help track
the person that proposed the changes or comment. Then when things settle
down a copy-paste is enough to make the text become real content
('convert' button of xmlmind interface can also be handy here).

Beyond this, there are options that come to my mind:
- using webdav could bring versioning, but for ease of use, that would
require support by the editor (webdav access exist only in the
commercial version of XMLMind, and I'm not sure that give you access to
the detailed information/diffs between versions of a file)
- adding a patch creation/integration tool into [pick your favorite] XML
editor ; using xmldiff/xupdate, that could be useful to allow people to
keep their xml based workflow
- a web based collaborative tool that would allow different people to
work on a same draft would be great; it may for instance allow uploading
draft revision and comparing them to previous ones, and would help the
editors to integrate changes (or part of the changes) into a doc ; it
could integrate with tools.ietf.org and xml.resource.org conversion
tools; all this would allow offline editing, but the tool may also
integrate some "WYSIKN" editor backed by xml2rfc xml format ; it could
also integrate a comment system allowing people to comment on not-yet
integrated changes 

But I guess is stuff people already imagined, and its just that time and
manpower are too scarce... Anyway if some people happen to work on a
such thing I would happily betatest it!

-Thomas

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---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 18:48:11 +0100

Thomas Morin wrote:
> ...
> ...

I've been happily using an xmlrfc format extension that allows simple 
issue and change tracking, and which (IMHO) creates beautiful 
change-highlighting HTML and issues list from it. The main problem being 
it makes making changes harder (you need to remember the markup syntax,a 
and also link every change to an issue) -- but maybe that's not a 
problem but a feature.

For an example, check the files at 
<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/#draft-ietf-webdav-bind>.

Best regards, Julian