Question 1

What is Interleaf

Accepted Answer

Interleaf, Inc. provides software and services to allow organizations to build, integrate and manage document systems. Interleaf software covers the full range of document processes: accessing information, developing text and graphic documents, putting them through their review and revision processes, distributing them electronically or on paper, and managing the entire process.

"Interleaf 6" is a document authoring and composition package. It provides an integrated set of tools for creating compound documents: word processing, graphics, data-driven business charts, tables, equations, image editing, automated page layout, book building-including automatic index and TOC, conditional document assembly. It includes several features engineered to support the production of large and complex document sets, including: centralized control over parts or all of a document (format and/or content), global search and replace/change on individual graphics objects regardless of specific orientation or position, revision management.

Also available (on some platforms) is the optional Developer's Toolkit (DTK) for customizing or extending the capabilities of the above authoring tool. Developer's Toolkit is used to write programs in Interleaf Lisp. Interleaf Lisp is similar to CommonLISP, but it also contains an extensive set of classes, methods, and functions for examining and changing almost all Interleaf objects, including documents and their contents. DTK includes an editor, debugger, compiler, listener, interpreter, and on-line documentation. Lisp code developed with DTK, or even written with an ordinary editor, can be executed by the stock system, so that customization or the provision of special functionality is not limited to installations with DTK. In fact, much of the distributed system is written in Lisp. Another option for Interleaf is "Interleaf 6 < SGML >" which provides complete support for creating structured documents in SGML.

Question 2

What is New in QuickSilver

Accepted Answer

The following new features and changes are included in this release of QuickSilver:

new Advanced Publisher tool
improvements to basic publishing and book features
updates for filters

Advanced Publisher Tool
The new Advanced Publisher tool, available from the Tools menu, provides powerful publishing capability beyond what is available in basic QuickSilver publishing.
For example, you can publish and deliver a complex, multi-file publication directly to a BroadVision Portal, using Advanced Publisher features to define the publication's category placement and to assign portal attribute and qualifier values based on QuickSilver attributes.

Improvements to Basic Publishing and Book Features
Several features have been added or improved in the basic QuickSilver publishing and book subsystems.

Hypertext TOC and Index Documents
In this release, the previous method for creating hypertext linked TOCs and indexes has been replaced. You can now choose from two methods:

Use the Book > TOC and Book > Index commands to create link-ready TOC and index documents that you can edit before publishing.
Use this method if you require complete control over the appearance and placement of the TOC and index documents in your publication.
Each entry in a link-ready TOC or index is bracketed by a pair of special index tokens. During the publishing process, each entry is converted to a hypertext link.
When you edit link-ready TOC or index documents, do not remove, or explicitly move, the index tokens at the beginning and end of each entry. You can make the following types of changes:
- Add components such as title headings, dividers, and paragraphs.
- Change component properties, either with catalogs or by applying changes to components in the document itself.
- Insert hard line returns in TOC and index entries.
- Change, remove, or add words in TOC and index entries.
Use the new Create Index and Create TOC check boxes on the Publish dialog box to automatically generate linked TOC and index documents during the publishing process.
Important: Generating index and TOC documents during the publishing process overwrites existing index and TOC documents in the book.

To automatically generate hypertext-linked TOCs and indexes during the publishing process, use the Create TOC and Create Index check boxes on the Publish dialog box (for basic QuickSilver publishing) or on the TOC/Index sheet of the Project Properties dialog box (for Advanced
Publisher).
Use this method if the appearance and content of automatically generated TOC and index documents is acceptable for your publication. To control the placement of automatically generated TOC and index documents, include "dummy" TOC and index documents in the appropriate locations in your book before publishing. These documents can be empty, but their file names must match the TOC and index document names specified in your book. TOC document names are specified on the Content sheet of the Component Properties dialog box for components that are to be included in the TOC. Index document names are specified on the Index Token Properties dialog box.
Combining Methods for Creating TOCs and Indexes
You can use one method to create your TOC and another to create your index. For example, you could use the Book > TOC command to create your TOC, but choose to automatically create your index while publishing. In this case, when preparing to publish, you would deselect the Create TOC check box and select the Create Index check box on the Publish dialog box (for basic QuickSilver publishing) or on the TOC/Index sheet of the Project Properties dialog box (for Advanced Publisher).

Important: TOC and index documents created prior to QuickSilver version 1.6.1 with patch AB must be regenerated if you want them to contain hypertext links when published.
The new methods for creating hypertext TOCs and indexes do not require HyperLeaf Toolkit. However, HyperLeaf Toolkit is still required for publishing documents with links that were created using HyperLeaf.

Single or Multiple Output Files
In the Publish dialog box, you can choose to output a book as multiple files, so that a separate output file is generated for each document in the book. You can also set the .publish-single-file attribute on any book or sub-book to cause it to always publish as a single file.

The .publish-single-file attribute
The first time you publish a book, a .publish-single-file attribute is automatically defined at the top level of the book. Its attribute value is set according to whether the Output book as multiple files check box in the Publish dialog box was selected when you published. The following list illustrates this relationship.(Check box status / Attribute value)

deselected - yes
selected - no

Toggling the check box status in the Publish dialog box changes the .publish-single-file attribute value at the top level of the book. Changing the attribute value at the top level toggles the check box status.

Publishing sub-books as single files
By default, when you publish a book as multiple files, one output file is created for each document in the book, and the structure of the output directory reflects the source book's structure. If the source book contains sub-books, the output directory contains analogous sub-directories, with individual output files for each document.
If you want all the documents in a sub-book to be published as a single file, even when the rest of the book is published as multiple files, you can set the .publish-single-file attribute value to yes on that sub-book.

Excluding Files from a Publication
To exclude specific files from a publication, but keep the files in your QuickSilver source book, you can use the .publish-ignore attribute.
Important: The .publish-ignore attribute works only with multiple-file output.

Files Excluded by Default
QuickSilver catalogs and Lisp files are always excluded from publications, for both single- and multiple-file output.
The following files are either excluded or not converted when you publish a book to PDF:

files in formats other than QuickSilver (.ildoc)
files in non-book sub-containers

These files are excluded if you output your publication as a single PDF file (similar to printing a book). If you choose multiple-file output, these files are included in the published output directory, but are not converted to PDF. To exclude them from the published output directory, you can use the .publish-ignore attribute.

Excluding QuickSilver Documents and Sub-books
To exclude QuickSilver documents and sub-books from a publication, you can use the .publish-ignore attribute or you can use conditonal content.
When you use conditional content to tag documents and sub-books for exclusion, the parent book is adjusted to reflect the absence of the excluded files. For example, the tagged files are omitted from page number and chapter number streams and from newly generated TOCs and indexes.
When you tag QuickSilver documents and sub-books for exclusion using the .publish-ignore attribute, the parent book is not adjusted. The book's autonumber streams, TOCs, and indexes reflect the presence of the tagged files in the book, even though the files themselves are excluded
from the published output.

Using the .publish-ignore Attribute
To use the .publish-ignore attribute, you must first define it, then set its value to yes on each file you want to exclude. Attributes you define on QuickSilver books and sub-books (.ilboo) or documents (.ildoc) become available for all other .ilboo and .ildoc files in the book. For other types of files and directories, you must define attributes individually.

To exclude a specific file or directory from a publication:

On the QuickSilver desktop, select the top-level book or a specific document, sub-book, or other sub-directory in
the book.
Choose Attributes Setup from the Edit menu and define an attribute named .publish-ignore, restricted to the values yes and no.
Select the file or directory you want to exclude.
Choose Attributes from the Edit menu and set the value of the .publish-ignore attribute to yes.
When you publish the book, any icon in the book with .publish-ignore set to yes is excluded from the publication and from the published output container.
QuickSilver publishing disregards .publish-ignore settings on icons that you explicitly select for publishing. For example, suppose you set .publish-ignore to yes on a sub-book named appendix.ilboo. If you publish the book that contains appendix.ilboo, appendix.ilboo is excluded from the publication. However, if you select the icon named appendix.ilboo and publish it, the .publish-ignore setting has no effect; appendix.ilboo is published in full.

Browse Button for the Publishing Destination Path
By clicking the new Browse button next to the Destination text box on the Publish dialog box, you can browse local or networked file systems to set the destination path for your publications.
Use the Destination text box and option menu to specify where to paste the published file.

Pathname - To publish to any directories on the network, choose Pathname from the option menu and type full paths in the text box. You can use this option to make the document available on a shared directory for your workgroup.
Desktop - To publish to user desktops, choose Desktop from the option menu and type user names in the text box. You can use this option to exchange
documents privately.
Bulletin Board - To publish to user bulletin boards, type user names in the text box and choose Bulletin Board. You can use this option to make it easy for reviewers to find and read your documents.
Type a space between each path or user name.

Default Publishing Workspace Preference
On the Publish sheet of the QuickSilver Preferences dialog box, you can set a default path for the publishing workspace, where temporary files are stored during the publishing process.

The Publish Preferences
Use the Publish preferences to specify paths required for successful publishing.

Path to Acrobat Distiller
Provide the path to your installed version of Adobe Acrobat Distiller. This is required for publishing QuickSilver documents to PDF format.

Path to publishing workspace
The publishing workspace is a directory used by the Publish feature and the Advanced Publisher tool for storing temporary files during the publishing process. You can use the default workspace (typically your clipboard), or you can type or browse to a different path.
By default, Advanced Publisher also uses this directory as the default target location for final publications. However, you can change this path within Advanced Publisher on a project-by-project basis.

Filters Updates
Several filters have been updated, including the following:

The RTF/Microsoft Word import filter (rtf2iam) converts hyperlinks in RTF files to HyperLeaf links in QuickSilver documents.
The Adobe Acrobat import filter (pdf2iam) supports PNG predictor algorithms for improved PNG conversion.
The CGM import filter (imsl2iam -format=cgm) supports CGM version 4.
The AutoCADR Drawing Interchange (DXF) import filter (imsl2iam -format=dxf) includes several enhancements that improve DXF conversion.
The JPEG import filter (bmp2leaf) converts the CMYK values in JPEG files to RGB values in QuickSilver.

Question 3

How does Interleaf compare to FrameMaker, IslandWrite, WordPerfect, etc.

Accepted Answer

This is a religious and/or political issue for many, and it is very hard to provide an objective answer.  The following summarizes a few majority opinions from the frequent discussions in the newsgroup.

Framemaker is considered to be a "mid-range" application; it is easy to learn, but experienced users find complex tasks difficult or impossible.  Many I5 users hate the toolbox, Mac/PC-like interface. 

Interleaf considered a high-end system; it is difficult to get started, but expandable and powerful when advanced tasks must be done. While many new users abhor the I5 UI, a seemingly equal number of experts praise it.  I6 for Unix has a traditional Motif interface whose graphics editor is largely toolbox based.  6.1 offers a combination of traditional Motif/MSWindows style interface with optional "power user" UI features.

Interleaf's document creation metaphor is object-oriented and structured in approach, in contrast to the page-layout orientation of many "Desktop Publishing" products like Frame, Quark, PageMaker, etc. This is often a widely misunderstood difference when comparing Interleaf to other "similar" products.

IslandWrite, WordPerfect, MS-Word, et al. have been considered low-end applications, but as they improve on their capabilities, Interleaf distinguishes itself from them in the complexity and size of documents it can deal with, in its level of integration of text and graphics, and in its open architecture for third-party extensibility.

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