====== XML Syntax ======

**Yagsbook** is an XML format similar to Docbook. Initially is was going to be a few addons to Docbook, but it was soon decided that Docbook was too tied to its own domain (technical documentation) to be useful for a roleplaying game. There are some similarities between Docbook and Yagsbook, but these are for historical reasons.

==== Examples ====

For those that find it easier to get a handle on things with a few examples, try the following locations. These are all 'live' repositories of Yagsbook documentation.

  * [[http://yagsbook.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/yagsbook/trunk/sources/yags/core/|Yags core rules]]. These are some quite complex documents written in Yagsbook. They are all XML files, many of which pull in external files. For example, all skill lists are listed separately, broken down into different files according to skill type.
  * [[http://yags.glendale.org.uk/characters.xml|Example characters]]. Each of the listed characters is a Yagsbook //character// document. There is an icon at the top of each page which allows you to view the source XML to see how characters are described. In this instance, //Alfresco// is being used to render the Yagsbook into HTML on the fly.

===== Document Types =====

There are three types of top level documents in Yagsbook and many more support documents which may be included by the top three. 

  * <[[xml/article]]>
  * <[[xml/bestiary]]>
  * <[[xml/characters]]>
  * <[[xml/equipment]]>

===== Articles =====

The principle type of document in **Yagsbook** is the <[[xml/article]]>. Articles are designed to be the top level holder of all other document types, and as such is the only document type which contains extensive header information. 

Though bestiary and character documents are also considered top level, these can be referenced from an article and inlined. No other document type can currently inline an article.