Online help is written in ordinary text files. You process,
or compile, these files with the DocBook software to create run-time
help files that can be read by the Help System.
Creating Your volume.sgm File |
 |
DocBook expects a primary control file named volume.sgm,
where volume
is a name you choose.
Be sure your volume
name is unique and meaningful. If your volume
name is too general, it may conflict with another volume that someone
else has created. If you are writing application help, one recommended
practice is to use the application's class name.
The named volume.sgm
file contains entity declarations and entity references to files
that make up the help volume. Although DocBook expects a single
volume.sgm
file as input, you can separate your work into multiple source files.
Additional files are sourced into the volume.sgm
file using file entities. A file entity is
like a pointer to another file. That file, in effect, is inserted
wherever the entity's name appears in the volume.sgm
file. The referenced files can also contain entity references to
yet other files.
Suppose a help volume has six chapters and each chapter is
a separate file. The files are: HomeTopic, Metainfo, TOC, Tasks,
Reference, and Glossary. The volume.sgm
file for the help volume includes file entities for each of the
six files and a list of entity references that instruct the DocBook
software to process the files.
...
<!entity HomeTopic FILE "HomeTopic">
<!entity MetaInformation FILE "Metainfo">
<!entity TableOfContents FILE "TOC">
<!entity Tasks FILE "Tasks">
<!entity Reference FILE "Reference">
<!entity Glossary FILE "Glossary">
...
&HomeTopic;
&MetaInformation;
&TableOfContents;
&Tasks;
&Reference;
&Glossary; |
The details of running DocBook are covered in “To Create a Run-Time Help Volume”.
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