$Id: unsupported.ref.html,v 1.9 2001/10/14 20:48:24 ben Exp $
Copyright © 2001 Benoit Guillon
Some of the DocBook elements are not directly supported by LyX, since the LyX file format is more limited and/or contains different kind of information.
If the DocBook to LyX translation was only a process to publish a document it would not be a real problem, since at this level only the rendering purpose is important: for each element or element combinations a rendering choice can be taken. The initial document structure is then lost, but it is out of scope of the process.
The problem is that translating to LyX is translating from one structure to another. Thus structure or information is important and should not be lost. The DocBook to LyX translation should allow to translate back to XML without losing too much information. Besides, rendering is important too, since LyX display the document in a WYSIWYM way.
So, the strategy used to translate unsupported elements follows one of these cases:
The element is related to a similar LyX feature, but some of its information has no meaning in LyX. In this case the additionnal information is silently lost.
The element does not exist, but can be emulated to something else that respects the original principles and/or the default rendering.
The element does not exist, and trying to replace it by something else can involve a loss of information. The element is then copied as is by using the SGML Style (unsupported blocks) or ERT (unsupported inlined elements).
Of course, different methods can be applied to translate the same element, and selecting one method depends on some considerations discussed for each element. This reference lists all the unsupported elements translated to "something", and the reason of the translation choice.
Table of Contents
This element translated only for figure file inclusion. The following example is well translated:
<figure float="0" id="figureeps">
<title>A pdf/eps fig </title>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="figures/sample" align="center" scale="75">
</imagedata>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<para> figure Description </para>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</figure>
The question is: how should be translated the other media?
This element is copied as SGML, since it must be displayed as a block. The elements command, group, and arg used under this element are copied as ERT.
This element should be translated in another way because the output LyX file can be hardly readable if it contains many commands. The question is: should it be only rendered or should we keep the structure?