It seems that you could force that list to a multi-column block? Still,
that would be a significant customization.
Regards,
Dean Nelson
Enterprise Electronics Corp
-----Original Message-----
From: Colin Shapiro [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 3:29 PM
To: Nelson, Dean
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] Dynamically creating an FO table
based on content length
Hi,
Yes, this is similar to what I am trying to do. However, I
don't believe that this is a DocBook-specific problem, or a shortcoming
of the DocBook DTD / XSL distribution itself.
I could be using my own custom DTD and I still wouldn't know how
to write XSLT that can predict the physical dimensions of printed text
blocks after they are generated by an FO processor. That is the heart
of my question.
Obviously, there is no way a stylesheet can know exactly what
printed output will look like, since the FO processor has yet to do its
magic. But maybe there's a good way to predict the output, somehow.
If you wanted to go all-out, you could probably do the
following:
1) Based on the font family, size, weight, and style that will
be used, calculate the final, printed widths of each possible character
(or at least letters/numbers) and store them in variables.
2) Use these values to calculate the total widths of the
paragraphs/listitems/whatever you want to output.
3) Use these total widths to calculate how many lines each
paragraph/listitem/whatever needs to occupy.
4) Use this information to determine how many columns are needed
to contain all the lines of text produced.
That, however, seems like a lot of work, and a very complicated
stylesheet.
Is there a better way?
Colin
On 4/3/07, Nelson, Dean <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This was something that I was wondering myself, just
yesterday. I wanted to be able to do a list that had a certain height
and would automatically wrap to the next column on the right when the
height was exceeded. But atlas, this mere mortal failed and could not
figure out how to do it with standard Docbook features.
I think that this is a feature that could be added to
the lists in Docbook?
Regards,
Dean Nelson
Enterprise Electronics Corp
-----Original Message-----
From: Colin Shapiro [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 2:14 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [docbook-apps] Dynamically creating an
FO table based on content length
Hi all,
I have a problem which I can't think of a good
way to solve. I realize that I am perhaps approaching this problem
incorrectly, so I hope someone can point me in the right direction.
Suppose that I have an arbitrary series of
paragraphs in my source file, containing an arbitrary amount of content:
<para>This is some content.</para>
<para>This is more content.</para>
<para>This is even more content.</para>
<para>This is a longer amount of content.</para>
Now, suppose that I want to format this source
in an FO table with a single row of cells. I want the table to have a
fixed height--say, 2 inches--so that the table never grows higher than
2 inches. I might do this by placing block-containers within the table
cells, giving them height attributes. Then, I distribute my content
among the table cells accordingly:
<fo:table>
<fo:table-column column-number="1"/>
<fo:table-column column-number="2"/>
<fo:table-body>
<fo:table-row>
<fo:table-cell>
<fo:block-container height="2in">
<fo:block>This is some
content.</fo:block>
<fo:block>This is more
content.</fo:block>
<fo:block>This is even more
content.</fo:block>
</fo:block-container>
</fo:table-cell>
<fo:table-cell>
<fo:block-container height="2in">
<fo:block>This is a longer amount of
content.</fo:block>
</fo:block-container>
</fo:table-cell>
</fo:table-row>
</fo:table-body>
</fo:table>
The problem, however, is that the source file
can contain any number of paragraphs of various lengths, and this will
not be known until processing time. Since I never want my table exceed
2 inches in height, I may need to add more columns as needed to get
additional cells. The idea here is that the first cell will accommodate
2-inches-worth of content, then whatever overflows will spill into the
next cell, which will in turn accommodate 2 inches of content, etc., and
this will continue until all content is displayed.
I'd like a stylesheet to automatically handle
this. It will determine how much content there is, how many table
columns are needed, and distribute the content accordingly. However,
this seems rather difficult to do, since the stylesheet has no way of
knowing what the final print output will look like, how large the fonts
will be, etc.
I might be able to do something with string
lengths. Calculate the length of each paragraph, calculate the capacity
of a table cell, and output the paragraphs in table cells where they
fit. But this would be based on character counts only, which hold no
bearing on the final print output when a variable-width font is used;
i.e., if the string "abcde" has a length of "5", that doesn't tell me
anything about how much physical space the text "abcde" will occupy when
printed in Helvetica font at size 12pt.
Does what I'm getting at make sense? I hope I
am being clear about my problem; let me know if I am not.
Thanks,
Colin
