On 30.08.2005 16:06:08 Finn Bock wrote: > [Jeremias on <fox:ps-> extensions] > > > Anybody opposed to my adding this? ... > > Not at all, but I assume that you ask because it can't be added as an > extension that is completely seperated from FOP. That you have to make > changes to FOP sources in order to add it.
Yes, that's true. > And that is IMO a bit of a failure of FOP and the renderer design. Why do you think this is a design failure? The problem is that XSL-FO doesn't (directly) provide for certain needs. For example, it doesn't provide any means to add device control information (like paper type and other print job information). In the past I've had to post-process PDF to add device control code. The difficult thing was to know which page was created by which simple-page-master so the right paper can be selected. Some FOP users simply need such a mechanism however it looks like. My proposal is one that doesn't try to provide a concrete means to specify paper types but simply provides a means for people to add the control code themselves. XEP and other commercial vendors did similar things, although some have chosen XML processing instructions for that. I prefer a special namespace. An alternative could probably be JDF to handle these specific features but this beast is much too complex and there are only a few expensive systems that support it. Most of us doing mass-printing simply need to inject a few PostScript commands into the PostScript stream. This should all not be very invasive. JDF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Definition_Format Step 2 after this extension might be a PPD parser so the PS Renderer could create the right control code based on logical information. But that is a lot of work. I'd like to keep it simple to start with. Jeremias Maerki
