I've been exploring Greenstone to use with collections of SGML and XML documents. One set is XML TEI and another is an proprietary SGML document type that is generally a book structure. It could reasonably easily be converted to XML. I have basic two needs for which I am first seeking general answers as to whether Greenstone is a feasible tool.

1. First will Greenstone handle XML documents with relative ease? I see there is an auxiliary XML plugin but I haven't been able to understand it yet. Included in this question can Greenstone search for data within any particular element and format any particular element. Also we need to search on a paragraph level which generally seems possible by mapping them to GS <section>s, but do I really have to embed commented out <section> tags throughout the document? Is there a way of mapping a <p> element in the import documents to GS <section> elements more generically?

2. Each of these collections are indexed with terms from a thesaurus using embedded elements in the XML/SGML. Is searching with a thesaurus plausible with Greenstone?

Thanks,

Doug

Doug Black
West Rock Visions
137 Alden Avenue
New Haven, CT 06515
Voice and Fax: (203) 389-0184
doug@westrockvisions.com