On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Ron Wheeler < [email protected]> wrote:
> On 26/03/2014 11:46 AM, Glenn Adams wrote: > > > > On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 8:42 AM, Ron Wheeler < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> The DITA-OT (DITA Open Toolkit) (http://www.ditaopentoolkit.org/) is an >> open source project that depends on FOP. >> It takes DITA ( >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Information_Typing_Architecture) XML >> input and produces a number of different document types. >> One of the main output types is PDF and it uses FOP to do this. It takes >> DITA input (xml) and produces an intermediate set of files that are >> processed by FOP to produce a PDF. It can also produce HTML >> There is a Maven plug-in to control the production in an IDE environment. >> It calls all the bits and pieces required to take the raw DITA XML files >> and output a document in PDF in the target folder. >> >> There is some interest in adding DITA-OT to the Apache family and in my >> opinion, the XMLGraphics group seems like a natural home and the FOP >> sub-project might be a good place for DITA-OT to reside. >> >> DITA-OT is a large community of users but a small community of developers. >> There are also a few enhancement ideas that would require FOP >> enhancements to complete. >> In addition, my own belief is that the FOP community could add some >> technical advice to the DITA-OT community that would be helpful. >> >> http://sourceforge.net/projects/dita-ot/ is the download page. DITA-OT >> is currently distributed under the Apache License V2.0. >> >> I am not one of the main players in the group but have taken on the task >> of seeing if there is a possibility of opening the discussion with the FOP >> group. >> >> Would there be any interest in considering adding front-end XML >> processing to the FOP production project? > > > FOP already has a front-end XML processor. It's called XSLT. It is > provided solely as a convenience function. Some of us have doubts about > whether that was a good idea or not, since it tends to generate a lot of > traffic unrelated to FOP's core function. > > Why do you want *more* front end processing and why isn't XSLT > sufficient? > > > "More" means a set of XSLT stylesheets that validates a standard language > called DITA (Docbook supported as well) and transforms it to FOP input (or > HTML). > IMO, FOP should remain neutral to pre-FOP input formats. I'm one of those who would like to remove the XSLT front-end functions from FOP entirely, whereas you propose to take it further towards the pre-transformation XML domain. So, I would vote against such a proposal. > > You do raise a good point about the user group traffic and splitting the > conversation between FOP concerns and the more diverse discussions about > how to get FOP input from the various sources of text and graphics. > > The addition of the DITA group to the project might relieve(or redirect) > some of that traffic. > It will, at least, add quite a few people to the project who are used to > dealing with the front-end requirements of creating the original DITA XML > with editors, converting non-XML source text to XML and writing XSLT > stylesheets, who can respond to questions that are more about documentation > management than document construction. > > > Ron > > > > -- > Ron Wheeler > President > Artifact Software Inc > email: [email protected] > skype: ronaldmwheeler > phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102 > >
