Andy Clark wrote:
>
> > 1) Stylebook can be configured to use virtually any layout
> > desired, but the one chosen by the XML project is too graphics
> > heavy.
>
> After I finish writing up the docs in the current format, I'm
> going to be looking at bending the StyleBook stylesheets (not
> the engine) to my will so that I can create a whole new look
> for Xerces2. If I'm able to do that, then I will definitely
> making it much less graphics heavy.
Completely doable. I have done it several times. I have taken
the xml.apache.org configuration, reworked it to an independant
look, and made it look like jakarta.apache.org. The stylesheets
are XSLT, so you can do just about anything necessary with it.
> Even though I'm using the current style, I have modified the
> stylesheets a *little* bit to fix some bugs and some missing
> tags that I need. But I'm not going to mess with the overall
> style until I feel confident in how it all works together.
Keep in mind, you don't need Stylebook to style sheets. You can
directly run XSLT on it.
> > 2) Stylebook itself is not exactly maintained (Cocoon2 has
> > been threatening to replace it for ever)
>
> I'll finish reading the rest of this thread before I ask the
> following questions:
>
> [Q] Is Cocoon2 ready? (and how big is it?)
Cocoon2 is pretty ready. Current CVS weighs in at 570KB. It
requires a JAXP 1.1 compliant parser (Xerces) and a JAXP 1.1
compliant stylesheet engine (Xalan 2), and a library called
MaybeUpload. I would like to see this dependancy on MaybeUpload
removed--but because the JVM looks for some classes from it,
it is needed.
> [Q] Can it be used in stand-alone mode?
Yes. This has been available for a long time. We need to refine
the standalone interface a bit, but you can generate a site offline.
> > 3) The process for actually generating the site using
> > stylebook is cumbersome at best. [...] And the process
> > of knowing what generated files to check in is very error
> > prone.
>
> No argument here.
>
> But I'm fully in support of continuing to use Xerces and
> Xalan to build our docs. Now whether that's done with the
> StyleBook tool (which is quite small and very flexible if
> only we knew how to use it!) or Cocoon2 (which is supposed
> to be the biggest baddest dude on the block), I don't care.
> However, I *would* like the tools required to build the
> docs be as small as possible, though.
This is the process of weighing small and single-purpose, or
big and flexible. Cocoon 2 provides some abilities that
Stylebook could only dream about. Unfortunately, there is
a lot you will need. I am in the process of converting
Avalon over to Cocoon generation. The things that I like
with Cocoon are both content aggregation (merging two
independant sources into one document), and the ability
to run multiple stylesheets on a source efficiently.
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