When will there be a new version of FO ?
Well, the title says it all. I'm more particularly interested in margin notes, line numbering and better control of footnotes. P. Andries - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New FOP release?
Jeremias Maerki wrote: The problem is rather that the questions gets posted a lot and the response is always the same. Maybe people are getting tired of responding to them. The mailing list archives contain a lot of similar answers. Why not post the latest status on the Web ? It comes down to this: FOP is in redesign (announced on the website). Yes. All current releases come from a maintenance branch where relatively little is going on. That means releases don't come out too often, especially because this involves a lot of work. If you think that the current CVS version contains fixes you really need you can ask that a release be made as soon as possible. But don't expect too much at the moment. New features (especially concerning FO conformance) are not likely to appear. FOP has to be redesigned to allow that. Yes. And I believe this is the answer we are looking for : how far is it in its redesign ? I had another phone call with a major governmental institution. They would love to go the FO way if its future was not so blurred, we would even contribute to some code (I need line numbering in) and fix bugs. If only we has some visibility. Currently, my choice is RenderX (but this institution does not like getting locked into a small company) and a traditional proprietary solution (e.g. 3B2, Compuset). I would love to be able to tell them : in 6 months time the redesign will be finished, windows/orphan, keep-with-next and, I don't know, landscaped block-containers will be working. P. Andries
Marketing material : conving your manager
We spoke earlier on this list of needing marketing material to convince managers about the virtues of XSLFO. I have found this description of a Gartner Note which is positive (I may not disclose content). Cost of full note $95. http://www3.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=348967acsFlg=accessCanBuy FT-14-7235 Rita Knox Gartner FirstTake 23 October 2001 New Style Language Makes Reformatting XML Content Easier The new Extensible Stylesheet Language can save time and money since it eliminates the need for those using XML to reformat the same content multiple times. Event: On 16 October 2001, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) issued Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) 1.0 as a W3C recommendation for specifying how Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents may be formatted. W3C recommendation status indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability and has been reviewed by W3C members, who favor its widespread adoption. First Take: Four years in the making, XSL elevates style to the prominence of content, making XSL the companion sizzle to XML's steak since XML provides no presentation capabilities in its specification. XSL defines formatting objects to control how XML-defined components are to map to presentation styles for paper, auditory or electronic channels. For example, formatting objects on the Web can activate pop-up windows, generate sounds or launch applications. Here's how the W3C recommendation for XSL will likely enhance online transactions and exchanges: . Using XSL Transformation to transform structured XML documents, XSL will permit output of common content into many presentation formats -- e.g., paper, Web and audio. . It will enable customization of content that facilitates branding, user preferences, accessibility (e.g., increase font size or convert to audio stream from visual presentation). By enabling custom presentation, XSL will marry with the XML content to form a union that will improve user understanding (since presentation is essential to communicating a message that can be readily received). . Expect a host of new, XSL-enabled products to hit the market -- e.g., browsers, enterprise portals, portal or user-facing application servers, publishing products (e.g., office suite applications, interactive graphical interfaces for financial analysis or geographical maps), third-party plug-ins or encapsulated instructions for different channels (e.g., audio and high-end publishing). . Users will likely rely less on HTML or XHTML documents with Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) capability. Use of CSS will likely persist among its installed base and with enterprises that believe that Web presentation is the be-all and end-all. For most, however, XSL will provide broader capabilities. Enterprises should deploy a team of information designers to define low-bandwidth style sheets for multichannel output and publish them for enterprise use. The time expended by users on formatting documents and Web feeds can then be recovered to focus instead on revenue-generating activities.
Why is FO(P) a superior model than what most proprietary tools propose
Before convincing people to use specifically, FOP I would like to convince people that FO is a superior model than traditional model of proprietary solutions (3B2, Compuset) for documents that both FOP and those traditional tools can produce. In other words, is FO a good strategic directions. Some questions a bit more precise : 1) What are the advantages of people using XSL-FO as page description language rather than the ones their could be using with proprietary tools ? 2) I understand that everything related with XML (XSLT/XSL-FO) has a modern flavour that few techies can resist, but what are the objectives reasons ? 3) Are they any advantages to FO being integrated with XSLT that the proprietary tools would not have ? Thanks Does somebody know if any of the big software publishing companies are considering XSL-FO support ? P. Andries
Re: Why is FO(P) a superior model than what most proprietary tools propose
L Rutker wrote: From: Patrick Andries [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Why is FO(P) a superior model than what most proprietary tools propose 2) I understand that everything related with XML (XSLT/XSL-FO) has a modern flavour that few techies can resist, but what are the objectives reasons ? 3) Are they any advantages to FO being integrated with XSLT that the proprietary tools would not have ? Consider that once you data is in XML you can use that same data to produce PDF, HTML VoiceML (for you automated telephone system) or SVG graphical representation of the data by just changing the stylesheet using XSLT. No need to have multiple unsynced data sources for your different output requirements Isn't this the virtue of XSLT rather than XSL FO ?
Re: Why is FO(P) a superior model than what most proprietary tools propose
Thank you for all these good ideas. Would anyone happen to know of an industry analyst study on the advantages of XSL FO ? This is to lend some credibility to my recommendation.
Drawing a line between two region-body columns
I have divided the region-body in two. I would now like to draw a single line separating the two columns, can this be done ? Is there any way to write something in the column-gap ? Alternatively, since I am having a block flowing from one column to another could I have the right column block's left border to appear but not the left column block's left border to appear. I.e. right column of block ... | ... left column of block and not the usual | right column of block ... | ... left column of block which is easy to get with block border-left=1pt I see no way for this to work, but I would really like it to. Patrick Andries
Re: Drawing a line between two region-body columns
J.Pietschmann wrote: Patrick Andries wrote: I have divided the region-body in two. I would now like to draw a single line separating the two columns, can this be done ? Is there any way to write something in the column-gap ? Alternatively, since I am having a block flowing from one column to another could I have the right column block's left border to appear but not the left column block's left border to appear. You can use static content in a region overlapping the region-body with the text flow. Use an empty block or table with absolute positioning and height settings. Yes, as often the solutions proposed assume absolute positions, I would much prefer to be able to do this sort of thing starting after a number of arbitrary blocks (spanned here). I think that the region-body should not indicate the number of columns, but one or several flow-body (let's say) which could have varying number of columns (1,2,3...). A model superior to what is available today (one can only indicate a fixed number of columns or span them). Would also be nice if this flow-body could then have decoration attributes for the column gap or for the different borders of the columns defined. Just an idea. BTW please post this kind of questions only to fop-user. In general, avoid cross posting to both lists. Ok. P. Andries
2 coliumns * 4 columns table
I need to implement tables that seem to me to be difficult (or impossible) to render with XSL FO. The difficulty involves a table made of two columns (left/right) themselves divided into 4 further columns (a,b,c,d). The content should flows from the left four columns (a,b,c,d) on a page to the right four columns (a,b,c,d) of the same page before going on to the next pages, themselves divided in the same way. The page header on the next pages is slightly different from the one found on the first page containing the table. Is this possible with your XEP ? Could you give me an rough idea how to implement it and test it ? P. Andries
Re: 2 coliumns * 4 columns table
Yes good idea. J.Pietschmann wrote: Patrick Andries wrote: I'm not sure that declaring 2 columns in the region-body can help me on the first page, since it is preceded by single-column text (of arbitrary length) before the table split into 2 * 4 columns appears. You can put the text in a block and use span=all http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl/slice7.html#span J.Pietschmann
Re: [Fwd: ZapfDingbats]
J.Pietschmann wrote: Patrick Andries wrote: lt;fo:block text-align="center" font="ZapfDingbats"gt; amp;#x2766; lt;/fo:blockgt; Why doesn't this print me a vignet ? The Unicode character Reference at http://www.unicode.org/charts/charindex.html says U+2766 is "aldus leaf", whatever this is. Ein Weinblatt gezeichnet durch Aldus. I tried to include it (I see it in Netscape Messenger) : It seems to print correctly with FOP 0.20.3. 1. does you FO file look exactly as above, with all the escaped stuff? No, I didn't want any program to interpret it (Messenger does). 2. Try font-family="ZapfDingbats", the font property not yet implemented. That's an idea. And it did the trick. Danke. P. Andries
background-image and uri
Are background-images implemented in Fop 0.20.3 ? I get a message telling me no such function as url but no message telling me background-image not implemented... How can I specify the uri of the image otherwise ?
[Fwd: ZapfDingbats]
lt;fo:block text-align="center" font="ZapfDingbats"gt; amp;#x2766; lt;/fo:blockgt; Why doesn't this print me a vignet ? Isn't ZapfDingbats one of the 14 standard fonts ? P. Andries
Numbering lines
Is it possible to dynamically number lines in FO ? P. Andries
Why used FOP instead of...
I would like to know why FOP enthousiast (I am one) are using FO rather than products such as Crystal Reports or other such software (anyone Jetfoms ?). Just for the fun of playing with new technology ? Thanks for any hints (in private since this is off-topic) Patrick Andries
Re: Why used FOP instead of...
Interesting, I also have experience in Compuset. Do you known Mr. Bulman ? Are you happy with FO's speed ? So do I understand that Jetform does not produce clean PS ? Isn't it easier to use as FO (I do nor really know Jetform) ? Is it expensive ? Thanks a lot (when you have some time). Danke im voraus, Patrick Andries Jeremias Maerki wrote: FOP does almost all we need. What's missing can be added, since it'sOpenSource, right?We're currently working on a project for an insurance company whereCompuset is used and is to be replaced by an XML/XSLT/XSL:FO-basedapproach. One of the reasons for this decision was using freelyavailable standards like XML, XSLT, XSL:FO etc. What you currently getwhen you're using proprietary software is a beautiful WYSIWYG editor. OK,that's missing for XSLT/XSL:FO but that doesn't matter too much whereour project are targeted. FOA, XSLFast etc. are a good start but not yetreally useful IMO.Another thing we're doing is provide high-volume printing services, andone of our outsourcing customers is using Jetform with the result thatwe had to write code that patches the PostScript-Files delivered so wecould really use them. And that's just one of many problem they had inthat project.Well, there's more to te ll, but I got to work... I would like to know why FOP enthousiast (I am one) are using FO rather than products such as Crystal Reports or other such software (anyone Jetfoms ?). Just for the fun of playing with new technology ?Thanks for any hints (in private since this is off-topic) Cheers,Jeremias Mrkimailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]OUTLINE AGPostfach 3954 - Rhynauerstr. 15 - CH-6002 LuzernFon +41 (41) 317 2020 - Fax +41 (41) 317 2029Internet http://www.outline.ch
