Arved, thanks for the status update. Looking forward to .20.3, and would love to get a rough, non-binding idea when the redesign might be accomplished.
FYI, here's what I gleaned from looking into the three alternate solutions you mentioned. I would love to hear more details/corrections from the experts on this board. Antenna House - Windows only, no good for us. XEP - needs TeX, not sure if I want to hassle with it or if it would ever fly w/our infrastructure guys RenderX - fits requirements. Someone else tested it but said he couldn't get access to the API from demo--only batch mode. I've heard anecdotal evidence that it is no faster than FOP. Would love to hear more from anyone else w/firsthand experience. I'll try get it set up to benchmark large reports in batch mode if I get a chance. I have another guy looking into faceless as a possible solution for generating PDFs of very large, relatively simple reports. I'd love to stay within xsl:fo though. Thanks for all your hard work, Matt Savino Arved Sandstrom wrote: > > Hi, Pete > > I think that it would be most accurate to say that there is a relatively > stable core of features - the feedback on this list has been that people do > indeed use FOP, and reliably so, in production. But there are definitely > limitations - both lack of some XSL-FO features and also issues related to > memory. > > We are not where we would like to be, despite some significant personal > efforts. I don't count myself in that latter group, not for the past half > year certainly, as I have been sidelined by real work. I think Keiron Liddle > or Karen Lease would be best able to comment on where we FOP is headed. > > I think, based on your problem description, that you may very well find that > FOP suits your needs even in its current state. For a certain set of > problems I would not necessarily describe FOP as being "beta" at all. Others > will likely comment. I might add that because of the Apache license your > development teams would be able to freely modify and improve the source. > > For x.yy.z, x == 0 just means FOP hasn't achieved our first major target: > full feature support at nearly Extemded Conformance, with performance > enhancements. With that in mind, we advance yy every few months as > relatively significant new features are introduced. 'z' represents sets of > bug-fixes and minor enhancements. > > We are currently at 0.20.3rc, and should upgrade to 0.20.3 in less than a > week. > > Bertrand Delacretaz is working on JFOR integration - I am sure he will have > more to say. > > If extensive feature support (XSL-FO compliance) is the _primary_ concern, I > think you'd not go wrong in looking at either RenderX XEP or Antenna House > XSL Formatter. I can't comment on the price. > > Expect other comments. :-) > > Regards, > Arved Sandstrom > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: January 24, 2002 7:13 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Seeking Comments on Status of Project > > First off, thank you for what looks like a fantastic effort. I admire (and > am envious of) each of you who have found the time to contribute to such a > valuable project. > > I am involved with the approval process for bringing new technology into > our company. We have several development groups who have seen the FOP > engine and would like to include it their applications. The requirements > are pretty much the same across applications. They need to generate lots of > short dynamic documents in PDF (lots=500-1000 per day, short=1-20 pages, > mostly text, some tables). Some of the applications need to support > unicode or double-byte languages. > > On the surface, I agree that FOP looks like the right answer for what they > need. However, I also need to ensure that we follow our guidelines for > technology acquisition. > > One of our primary tenets is "no beta software should be included in > production applications". > > I have read through many posts in the mail list and appreciate the honesty > and clarity about the current status. > Back in January of 2001 and again in July 2001, Arved Sandstrom pointed out > that FOP is still a development effort. > With this message, I am hoping I can persuade one of the committers to > provide a "January 2002" update on the status. > I have found the occasional status messages very useful, hopefully any > response to this message on the archive will help others in the future. > > Here is a snippet from the July 2001 post by Arved: > > >> FOP developers and committers have never suggested that the processor is > >> anything other than a work in progress. My best guess is that if we have > a > >> production release by the end of the year then we'll be doing well. > Alpha is > >> a long ways away. > > Is this still the case? I am making an assumption that the version number > speaks to the status (v0.x is "pre-release"). > Is the version numbering a reflection of: > A. Still early in development > B. Indication of how completely the XSL:FO spec is implemented > C. A combination of both > > I also in various places reference to RC (Release Candidate) versions. It > seems that currently v0.20.1 is the latest "stable" release (no implication > intended by "stable" - I just think I saw that phrasing somewhere > associated with v0.20.1). > If possible, could someone clarify the intention/meaning of the x.yy.zz > version scheme. > (I am guessing that x is major production release, yy is a change to what > is supported, and zz is for minor changes / patches.) > > I see some notes about the inclusion of jfor (RTF output) into the FOP > project. I think that would be really cool, and speaks very well of the > effort put in thus far. Anyone care to comment on when that may make it > into a release? > > On a somewhat related note, any updated comments on the following would be > appreciated. > I have seen several posts that recommend Renderx XEP if you "need > production level code". Is that still the case? > Sometime ago, Renderx apparently put a feature comparison up on their site, > but since removed it (concerns of bias, etc). > I have seen references to things like "look for independent comparisons". > Has anyone seen a recent comparison? I can not find one (though I > understand time is better spent refining the code than dedicating resources > to run comparisons). > > Thanks in advance for any responses, > > Pete Tribulski > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
