I actually hadn't heard of DOMpdf before. It looks pretty
interesting, particularly it's CSS support which is something that I
am looking to implement. Mine doesn't have some of the limitations
that it has listed on it's features page, like nested tables. It
looks like they have taken great care to get all of the css styles
correct though which is something I was a little sloppy on. I think I
will use it as a reference to compare my renderings to to make sure
when I add in CSS support that I am getting it right. Or maybe if
their code is really good I could start from there and add in what I
need. I will check it out more as I get started on my own
implementation. Thanks for referring it to me.
I will try to get the text block / rich text support going soon with
some examples. As soon as I do I will let you know where you can
download it from.
Thanks,
Rick
On Nov 8, 2007, at 3:05 PM, Bryce Lohr wrote:
I would also be interested in this code. The functionality you have
there would be great for Zend_Pdf. I saw a proposal (but I can't
seem to find it right now) from the Zend_Pdf author outlining much
of the same things as the future direction for Zend_Pdf. He was
building up an object model loosely based on XSL-FO. I agree with
your sentiments about FO; a more streamlined subset might be more
practical in general. Also, I'm sure you've seen DOMpdf; a CSS
interpreter written in PHP that renders to PHP; there's probably a
lot of good ideas in there to reuse.
Regards,
Bryce Lohr
Rick Gigger wrote:
On Nov 8, 2007, at 9:26 AM, Philip Iezzi wrote:
Rick Gigger wrote:
Yes, I was aware of those. I don't use them because I
implemented my
own xml based solutions that has support for tables, page breaking,
columns, full rich text support, etc. The basic support in those
two
engines was never enough. All I really need are the primitives to
measure, style and draw text, and of course primitive line and
shape
drawing operations. I have an abstraction layer that lets me
swap back
and forth between R&OS and FPDF. My XML parser / DOM style
rendering
library handles the rest. So I don't think it would be too hard
to use
Zend_Pdf instead.
Great! Any way of contributing your code to the community?
I just started to switch from PEAR::File_PDF to Zend_Pdf but I'm
kind of disappointed that Zend_Pdf is still at the same spot as a
year ago what concerns improved text functions.
I played around with Zend_Pdf_Cell presented in issue http://framework.zend.com/issues/browse/ZF-1254
but it does not work as expected (e.g. character width is not
calculated correctly, center alignment is no real center
alignment, line wrapping does not seem to work at all,...).
We all would terribly appreciate your piece of code!
I can make the existing code available right now if people want it
but I think some code cleanup and documentation would be needed
before it could be accepted into something like Zend Framework. If
anyone wants to help out with that effort that would be great.
The biggest issue is that the XML format is mostly in my head and
only documented in stuff that I have already done so in order to
figure out how to use it you have to have access to examples or you
have to pick through the code. Also as with most first attempts at
something complicated you finish it up, get it working and finally
know the way it really should have been done in the first place.
So I think the best thing would be to start a clean implementation
now. I can start with basic rich text / wrapping / alignment
features. I will be able to copy most of that over directly from
the existing project because that code is very good and is actually
more of a 4th or 5th generation product. I started off doing
simple text wrapping and alignment on R&OS PDF about 5 years ago
and it has evolved significantly since then. That should be
immediately useful to people and could be used on top of Zend_Pdf
without actually modifying it.
First will come the DOM objects for doing the rendering and shortly
thereafter I will include an extensible XML parser so that creating
documents and testing will be much easier.
Then I can start to add stuff like tables and columns and other
layout features where I will need to do a little more R&D.
Eventually if the Zend people want to start incorporating it into
the framework they will be more than welcome to. I would be
willing to help out with the integration where my time and
expertise permits.
The only thing that has really been keeping me from releasing this
stuff in the past (other than time of course) is that I didn't know
anyone who was interested in it. If I could get some feedback from
you guys as I go it would be very helpful to me.
One thing to keep in mind is that my DOM is loosely based on
XHTML. I have drawn most of my tag names from it and am in the
middle of a rudimentary CSS implemention to abstract some of the
style information out of the XML. I have made specific changes
though for precision placement of layout items and for precise
control of page breaking and associated needs. For example I have
attributes on table headers to control whether or not they repeat
if the table is broken across multiple pages. I don't see any
reason though that someone couldn't write a completely different
XML layer (FOP?) and use my DOM objects underneath. That is where
all the real work is anyway. The drawback there is that the naming
of the DOM objects will in most instances correspond with HTML tag
names and their functionality will be geared towards my view of
what you need to do proper PDF layouts, which may be very different
from something like FOP. My impression of FOP was that it might be
great but it was a little too ambitions. I say that with regards
to both implementing and using it. By focusing on a subset of
XHTML I was able to get the functionality that I needed working
quickly and it is somewhat intuitive to learn for anyone who has
done even basic HTML work.
Anyway anyone who is interested let me know and I will notify you
(or should I just notify the list) when I have something ready for
you to download.
Thanks,
Rick
