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<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">

<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>1997</year><year>2016</year>
      <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
    </copyright>
    <legalnotice>
      Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
      you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
      You may obtain a copy of the License at
 
          http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

      Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
      distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
      WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
      See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
      limitations under the License.
    
     </legalnotice>
    <title>Overview OTP DTDs</title>
    <prepared></prepared>
    <docno></docno>
    <date></date>
    <rev></rev>
    <file>overview.xml</file>
  </header>

  <section>
    <title>DTD Suite</title>

    <p>Input is written as XML according to one of the DTDs and output
      is corresponding HTML. Documentation for an Erlang/OTP application
      is usually organized as follows:</p>
    <taglist>
      <tag><em>User's Guide</em></tag>
      <item>
	<p>(DTD:
	  <seealso marker="user_guide_dtds#partDTD">part</seealso>)
	  A collection of chapters
	  (<seealso marker="user_guide_dtds#chapterDTD">chapter</seealso>).
	</p>
      </item> 

      <tag><em>Reference Manual</em></tag>
      <item>
	<p>(DTD:
	  <seealso marker="refman_dtds#applicationDTD">application</seealso>
	  A collection of manual pages for modules
	  (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#erlrefDTD">erlref</seealso>),
	  applications
	  (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#apprefDTD">appref</seealso>),
	  commands
	  (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#comrefDTD">comref</seealso>),
	  C libraries
	  (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#crefDTD">cref</seealso>) and
	  files
	  (<seealso marker="refman_dtds#filerefDTD">fileref</seealso>).
	</p>
      </item>

      <tag><em>Release Notes</em></tag>
      <item>
	<p>Same structure as the User's Guide.</p>
      </item>
    </taglist>

    <p>In some cases, one or more of the User's Guide, Reference Manual
      and Release Notes are omitted. Also, it is possible to use either
      the <c>application</c> or <c>part</c> DTD to write other types
      of documentation for the application.</p>


    <p>The structure of the different documents and the meaning of the 
    tags are explained. There are numerous examples of documentation 
    source code.</p>

    <p>For readability and simplicity, the examples have been kept as
      short as possible. For an example of what the generated HTML
      will look like, it is recommended to look at the documentation of 
      an OTP application.</p>

  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Basic Tags</title>

    <p>All DTDs in the OTP DTD suite share a basic set of tags.
      An author can easily switch from one DTD to another and still use
      the same basic tags. It is furthermore easy to copy pieces of
      information from one document to another, even though they do not
      use the same DTD.</p>

    <p>The basic set of tags are divided into two categories:
      <seealso marker="block_tags">block tags</seealso> and
      <seealso marker="inline_tags">inline tags</seealso>. Block tags
      typically define a separate block of information, like a
      paragraph or a list. Inline tags are typically used within block
      tags, for example a highlighted word within a paragraph.</p>
  </section>

</chapter>

