ConsultationXML is a web-based XML editor for staff in web publishing departments, whose specific purpose is to make it easier to mark up consultation documents. The editor automatically converts PDF documents to basic XML and then presents them for marking up, tweaking and generally-making-better.
The final result is useful XML, usable by other tools to do neat things.
It’s needed because the final, definitive versions of consultation documents live in PDF format, and that’s not something we can change — at least, not in the short term. Somehow, they need to be turned into something which can ‘live’ online, stimulating a conversation and real two-way interaction about policy. They need to be documents which help people get into the issues, discuss and share them, relate them to their own situation and provide feedback on the aspects that concern them. This software is a first attempt at producing a tool to help departments facilitate that kind of interaction.
This software is young, and rough around the edges. It needs more work before it can be considered a polished, production-ready product. Part of making that a reality is getting the code out there, into people’s hands, so they can play with it. To that end, and because it’s just generally a good idea, ConsultationXML is open source software, licensed under GNU Affero, which we’re terribly pleased about!
We were commissioned by Steph Gray to produce this software for The Department of Innovation Universities & Skills.
You can download ConsultationXML using the links to the zip or TAR archives on the right, or via Subversion by following the instructions below.
Download
You can download ConsultationXML as a Zip or TAR archive, or by using our Subversion repository:
To get the current version of ConsultationXML:
svn co https://code.thedextrousweb.com/consultationxml/tags/0.1.1 consultationxml
To get the bleeding edge version of ConsultationXML:
svn co https://code.thedextrousweb.com/consultationxml/trunk consultationxml
When you’ve got the code, check out the README for more information, and INSTALL for installation instructions. If you’re dipping in to the code, you can read the documentation for ConsultationXML’s codebase here.
Support
This is the first release of ConsultationXML, and there will undoubtedly be problems. We may have missed something in the instructions, and if so, we’re very sorry. We’ll post updates here if necessary.
Unfortunately, we cannot offer formal support for this software. That said, if you hit a brick wall, pop us an email and we’ll see what we can do.
Bugs, Feedback & Flames
Please report bugs to us. If you don’t tell us your problems, we can’t fix them!
If you have feedback, we’d love you to blog it… but if you’re not that way inclined, pop us an email. We’ll assume that you don’t mind if we republish your comments. If you’d prefer us not to, please say so.