This article series proposes using Docbook XML as the ultimate source format for all documentation. The difference between most formats and Docbook, is that Docbook can be used to generate numerous final formats. [...] The series was written to introduce programmers to a PHP oriented publishing process which uses Docbook XML as the basis for generating professional looking HTML and PDF output.

Part one introduces the "ingredients" - Docbook XML, PHP5, Phing and Apache FOP - and includes an install process to help you get things set up.

The reason for PhD to exist was that the previously used DSSSL based system was slow: a full build (all formats and all languages) took 24 hours to complete. Further, the tools the system based on were old, rusty and nobody understood why they broke on some machines, but also why they worked on other ones. Having a php-based system for PHP ensures that there is always someone around who can fix it if it's broken. This wasn't the case with the old documentation build system.

The conversion was spurred on by the fact that the PEAR documentation stopped building and more and more people were finding it hard to build on their machines too. He walks through the steps he took - installing PhD, converting over the docs to the DocBook 5 format and the first builds with the new system.

Now that at the XML was shiny, too, it was time to actually use PhD on it. The numbers were amazing: While a build for one format and one language took around 40 minutes on my system (dual core Macbook with 2GHz and 2GiB RAM), building the same with PhD takes 45 seconds!

Here was the hardest GSoC week ! I wrote a big part of the PDF output and both the themes "phppdf" (each PHP manual part in a file) and "phpbigpdf" (a big PDF file with all the sections).

Rudy's project for the GSoC is to create a Docbook renderer that can take in a standard Docbook file and output it into multiple formats. This past week saw the development of the PDF output method but he's also created methods for making a CHM (Windows help file) and a manpage output format. You can keep up with his latest progress on his blog.

After my playtime with Docbook and PDF generation, I decided to make a sample PDF of the current Part 9 of the tutorial series. Your comments as to layout, style, portability and other facets that make a PDF worth downloading are very welcome. Eventually the whole series will be available in this format as well as HTML.

He's using Docbook 5, Docbook XSL and Apache FOP to generate the files. Syntax highlighting is done through Phing.

The PHP documentation team is pleased to announce the initial release of the new build system that generates the PHP Manual. Written in PHP, PhD ([PH]P based [D]ocBook renderer) builds are now available for viewing at docs.php.net. Everyone is encouraged to test and use this system so that bugs will be found and squashed.

Once the new build system is stable, expect additional changes to the PHP manual that will include an improved navigation system and styling for OOP documentation.

You can use the my.php page to set it as your default mirror if you'd like to use it seamlessly.

Quick note; We released PhD0.1RC1 today o/ Building the php.net documentations has never been as easy or as fast. [...] It takes less than 2 minutes (on my two years old Precision M70 laptop) to render the entire php.net documentations in three formats.

He includes instructions on fetching the packages needed/documents to compile, modify the configuration files and installing and rendering the php.net documentation. They've also set up a special mirror of the PHP documentation with experimental builds of the docs.