Re: Seeking Comments on Status of Project
At 07:31 AM 2/6/02 +0100, you wrote: I think that most people need some encouragement to take the plunge in murky waters and since so many seem to feel generous this week, allow me to toss my hat into the ring - we would be pleased to help out with the awt renderer and the print renderer -- even to the extent of hooking it up to the jdk1.4 PrintService when fop takes the 1.4 plunge. However, we'd best have someone else to provide the backend support for those functions common to all renderers for traversing the data model etc. ' cheers -Ralph LaChance - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: I cud display page 1 of N
where r the faqs now? -Original Message- From: BRAHMA [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 3:18 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: I cud display page 1 of N Hi Louis and alex, Thanks for the help and from next time I'll check first in the FAQs:). best regards brahma - Brahmaiah Kurabalakota Software Developer eMIS eMerging Information Systems GmbH Am Friedrichsbrunnen D-24782 Büdelsdorf Tel.: +49 (4331) 447 1520 Mobile: +49 (172) 5372297 mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.emis-intl.com - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Seeking Comments on Status of Project
OK, so how can I help? I am not what could be called by most standards a professionally competent Java programmer yet. However, I agree that documentation is lacking -- I noticed that many, or at least some, of the Help documents in the distribution have not been updated since 1999 (or if they have been, -last edited- date and by whom have not been). I am attempting to use FOP for my company's publishing work flow - source content to pdf, html, and mySQL database text blobs. It's a great product, considering that XEP costs =$5,000, but frustrating in that Help is not always (or has ever been?) up to date with the current release. I might be able to squeeze in an hour or two a week for something deemed useful by someone in charge. Btw, who's in charge? It doesn't seem clear to me. And reluctantly, but while I'm at it, what the hey (certainly Keiron's always very patient comments didn't provoke the following), (everyone is entitled to a little ranting now and then, yes?): And why does it seem that those folks working on this project seem so against stating what their goals for when they want to complete certain stages of development, i.e. it'll be done when it's done is frankly not what I'd expect to here from a professional, even if they are only programming on their free time. If you expect users to use the product, not just hobbyist's or programming guru's, then you've got to be more forthcoming with what the development plan is. At least then, if you don't meet it, you can identify why and then set a new, more realistic goal. Finally, one thing FOP should have is an upto date page identifying all the elements, attributes, and attribute values that are supported. For instance, how long is keep-with-next going to remain (broken) on the website, when it clearly is implemented at least partially with tables? If you need someone to do it, just tell me how and I'll get about it. As to feature requests -- not everyone is a programmer, in fact most people are users, so not everyone can volunteer to implement something. Maybe it's not the best example, but when I use MSWord and it has a defect, I don't volunteer to fix it; I expect MS to do it. I just want to use the product (commercial or not) to make my other development efforts easier. On the other hand, I know the active developers have much to do. So rather, than brush people off with do I here you volunteering, create a public wish list or to-do list or whatever you want to call it. I know the type of comments this will probably generate around here about this being Open Source, and there being too few developers. Sure, I understand all that. But a plain 'ol user has certain performance expectations. I doubt that mySQL would enjoy the popularity it does today, if developers didn't meet user expectations (granted, there are far more people working on it, but I hope you get my point). Well, I've had my sayso, and I feel better. Now I can calm down again. :-) thanks all for your consideration, Matthew L. Avizinis mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gleim Publications, Inc. 4201 NW 95th Blvd. Gainesville, FL 32606 (352)-375-0772 ext. 101 www.gleim.com http://www.gleim.com === com·put·ing (kum' pyoot ing) 1. n the art of calculating how much time you wasted and money you spent in a doomed attempt to master a machine with a mind of it's own. --from computing: A HACKER'S DICTIONARY -Original Message- From: Keiron Liddle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 9:55 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Seeking Comments on Status of Project As far as using FOP it is still in the early development stages. So you can evaluate it and use it if it is good enough for your needs. Due to the missing features and bugs etc. it is harder to evaluate and may be a problem if you want to extend how you use it. In terms of the current development status. I would say that there needs to be more people invloved and at the current progress it is still a long way from being completed. Part of the problem seems to be that to implement even a simple fo feature there is still a lot of other code to do. Another problem is the lack of effort around all the other important areas: website, docs, images etc. The only thing that will improve FOP is more people doing something positive even if it is small. Regards, Keiron Liddle On 2002.01.25 00:12 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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
Re: Seeking Comments on Status of Project
Matthew, Yes, we're all entitled to a little ranting now and then. So I'll rant a little, and end with a few practical suggestions. As to who's in charge: Arved is the man, but Arved has recently started a new job, so you can imagine what his current situation is. Nonetheless, he is preparing a new maintenance release at this time. He is also concurrently involved in the design of the C/C++ version. Keiron is leading the redesign effort against the current code base with Karen heavily involved. Tore is the reference for all things fontish. That group is our active expertise on the current and immediate future code base. There are others who have worked on the code and documentation, e.g. Kelly and of course James Tauber, but who are not currently active. Bernard is the rtf guru, and he is looking at the integration of his rtf work into the project. My apologies to those I have missed. I am looking at some alternative ways to approach the design, and that, as far as current users are concerned, makes me completely useless. Given that the available time of contributors is limited, and that that availability can change dramatically and unpredictably, mapping out timetables is a demoralising business. It has been attempted, but the actual results have varied so far from the predicted that I think we are all gun-shy. A large part of the difficulty is that this particular problem has not been solved by this group before. In that sense it is uncharted territory. I saw an old movie about Christopher Columbus a while ago. He is back in the Spanish court and one of his enemies makes disparaging remarks about what a trivial matter it is to sail to the New World. Frederick March (Columbus) picks up a boiled egg and asks the bloke if he knows how to stand the egg on its end. The guy and the King and a few others attempt to balance the egg, unsuccessfully. Columbus raps the blunter end on the table, crushing the air sac, and stands the egg on the crushed base. It's easy when someone shows you how. Your comments about the relationship of the users to the makers are not *entirely* fair. Yes, users are entitled to expect that bugs and lacunae in the product will be fixed, without being told to do it yourself. Without non-participating users an Open Source project cannot expect to be very widely used. We need to know about user's requirements, and this group has made great efforts over the time that I have been involved to respond to those requirements. However, to demand that we display a level of professionalism (a word I always put in scare quotes) that I don't see from large software companies, including MS, is a bit unfair. This project has a well-defined goal: a fully confomant product ASAP. We are at a stage of re-definition. As has been stated on many occasions, the existing design has exhausted its usefulness, and requires a serious rethink. The result has to be capable of realising the afore-mentioned goal. That takes time. When it is completed, a map of sub-goals and sub-projects can be drawn up, and a vaguely useful timetable might be possible. Keiron and Karen are the primary references for this, and if they are not drawing up such a roadmap, I expect it is because they are still struggling to subdue the design. Keiron has indicated his interest in running some kind of school or seminar on the redesign for those who are interested, and I hope this comes to fruition. Keiron is committed to building on as much of the current base as possible, so I expect that we will learn a lot about that base. This will, I think, be important for moving the project forward. Some of you will have noticed that the current CVS branch does not do a lot. We need to begin to fill in those gaps, under direction from KK. If you want to help to increase the coverage of FOP, this will be the way to go. Keiron and Karen will need to mark out a number of places to which the toe of the crowbar can be usefully applied, and then talk people up to speed. We need some documenters to maintain and extend the web pages, and to do more detailed documentation on the design and implementation. I would hope that we could have two or three active in this area. The prime responsibility would be the web pages. I would imagine that one of the documenters would do all of the web page committing, but would keep the others up to date on all of the changes. If he were unable to continue with that responsibility, temporarily or permanently, a handover could be arranged within the documenters' group, and if necessary, a call could be issued for a replacement member or members. A fop-documenters mailing list may be appropriate. Peter Matthew L. Avizinis wrote: OK, so how can I help? ... Btw, who's in charge? It doesn't seem clear to me. And reluctantly, but while I'm at it, what the hey (certainly Keiron's always very patient comments didn't
Re: Seeking Comments on Status of Project
On Thursday 07 February 2002 03:57, Arved Sandstrom wrote: . . . If you do some code and want to see it added to the main or maintenance branches, then the onus is on one or more committers to explain why it's a bad idea, but there must be a good reason. . . . To make sure there is no confusion about this, could someone clarify (once more I guess) what exactly the main and maintenance branches are, and how to get the source code for both of them? - Bertrand - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Seeking Comments on Status of Project
To make sure there is no confusion about this, could someone clarify (once more I guess) what exactly the main and maintenance branches are, and how to get the source code for both of them? You get the main branch by getting the sources from CVS without a tag. The maintenance branch is extracted by using the tag fop-0_20_2-maintain. So the maintenance branch is where bugfixing is done for versions 0.20.2 and later. The redesign is done on the main branch. Cheers, Jeremias Märki mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] OUTLINE AG Postfach 3954 - Rhynauerstr. 15 - CH-6002 Luzern Fon +41 41 317 20 20 - Fax +41 41 317 20 29 Internet http://www.outline.ch - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Understanding FOP [1]
Welcome to the understanding series following Peter's suggestion. This will be a series of notes for developers to understand how FOP works. Questions should be asked. We (yes others too) will attempt to clarify the processes involved to go from xml(fo) to pdf or other formats. Some areas will get more complicated as we proceed. Introduction FOP takes an xml file does its magic and then writes a document to a stream. xml - [FOP] - document The document could be pdf, ps etc. or directed to a printer or the screen. The principle remains the same. The xml document must be in the XSL:FO format. For convenience we provide a mechanism to handle XML+XSL as input. The xml document is always handled internally as SAX. The SAX events are used to read the elements, attributes and text data of the FO document. After the manipulation of the data the renderer writes out the pages in the appropriate format. It may write as it goes, a page at a time or the whole document at once. Once finished the document should contain all the data in the chosen format ready for whatever use. Stages -- The fo data goes through a few stages. Each piece of data will generally go through the process in the same way but some information may be used a number of times or in a different order. To reduce memory one stage will start before the previous is completed. SAX Handler - FO Tree - Layout Managers - Area Tree - Render - document In the case of rtf, mif etc. SAX Handler - FO Tree - Structure Listener - document The FO Tree is constructed from the xml document. It is an internal representation of the xml document and it is like a DOM with some differences. The Layout Managers use the FO Tree do their layout stuff and create an Area Tree. The Area Tree is a representation of the final result. It is a representation of a set of pages containing the text and other graphics. The Area Tree is then given to a Renderer. The Renderer can read the Area Tree and convert the information into the render format. For example the PDF Renderer creates a PDF Document. For each page in the Area Tree the renderer creates a PDF Page and places the contents of the page into the PDF Page. Once a PDF Page is complete then it can be written to the output stream. For the structure documents the Structure listener will read directly from the FO Tree and create the document. These documents do not need the layout process or the Area Tree. Associated Tasks Verify Structure Listener concept. Further Topics -- XML parsing FO Tree Properties Layout Managers Layout Process Handling Attributes Area Tree Renderers Images PDF Library SVG ... - Questions are welcome. Stick to the topic, no details, this is an introduction. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
