Scott Daley wrote:
> I'm creating a new schema and CSS and want to be able to have tables a
> part of it. How is the best way to do this? Given that a lot of effort
> has gone into the table functionality in xxe's docbook support it would
> be good if I could draw on this by including/import the relevant bits.
> Is this possible?
>
> I have found information on how to restrict docbook using DTD's, but in
> this case I would prefer to use a schema.
There is no easy way to do what you want:
[1] Get a W3C XML Schema for DocBook either from oasis or by converting
the DTD to a schema using the dtdtoxsd tool included in XXE distribution.
[2] Using a text editor, extract all the element types used to build
DocBook/CALS tables. This step is more or less messy depending on the
modularity of the schema you found.
[3] Merge the CALS content model for tables by including it or importing
it in your own XML schema.
[4] Write an XXE configuration file for your XML schema.
This XXE configuration file must contain (extracted from
XXE_install_dir/config/docbook/docbook.xxe):
---
<load location="docbook.jar" />
---
(docbook.jar contains, among other things, all the support code for
DocBook/CALS tables.)
and (extracted from XXE_install_dir/config/docbook/common.incl):
---
<command name="zzz.tableColumn">
<class>com.xmlmind.xmleditapp.docbook.TableColumn</class>
</command>
<command name="zzz.tableRow">
<class>com.xmlmind.xmleditapp.docbook.TableRow</class>
</command>
<menu label="ZZZ" mnemonic="Z">
<item label="Insert Column Before" mnemonic="B"
icon="icons/ColumnInsertBefore16.gif"
command="zzz.tableColumn" parameter="insertBefore"/>
<item label="Insert Column After" mnemonic="A"
icon="icons/ColumnInsertAfter16.gif"
command="zzz.tableColumn" parameter="insertAfter"/>
<item label="Delete Column" mnemonic="D"
icon="icons/ColumnDelete16.gif"
command="zzz.tableColumn" parameter="delete"/>
<separator />
<item label="Insert Row Before" mnemonic="I"
icon="icons/RowInsertBefore16.gif"
command="zzz.tableRow" parameter="insertBefore"/>
<item label="Insert Row After" mnemonic="s"
icon="icons/RowInsertAfter16.gif"
command="zzz.tableRow" parameter="insertAfter"/>
<item label="Delete Row" mnemonic="e"
icon="icons/RowDelete16.gif"
command="zzz.tableRow" parameter="delete"/>
</menu>
---
The CSS style sheet for your XML schema must contain (extracted from
XXE_install_dir/config/docbook/css/docbook2.imp):
---
/* =====================================
Tables
===================================== */
/*
* "black" is the color used to draw a border around the table and its
cells
* based on values of attributes such as frame, rowsep and colsep.
*
* "rgb(238,238,224)" (a very light gray) is the color used to draw
* a border around each cell whether the cell actually has borders or not.
* Remove this parameter if this ``cell footprint'' disturbs you.
*
* For more information about table support for DocBook, see
* Power User's Guide.
*/
@extension "com.xmlmind.xmleditapp.docbook.TableSupport black
rgb(238,238,224)";
table,
informaltable {
display: block;
margin: 1.33ex 0;
}
table > title {
display: block;
font-style: italic;
font-weight: normal;
text-align: center;
/* keep margin because tgroup has no margin */
}
colspec,
spanspec {
display: table-column;
collapsed: yes;
}
tgroup {
display: table;
border-style: solid;
border-width: 1;
}
thead,
tfoot {
display: table-row-group;
font-weight: bold;
}
tbody {
display: table-row-group;
}
row {
display: table-row;
}
entry {
display: table-cell;
border-style: solid;
border-width: 1;
padding: 2;
}
entry > *:first-child {
margin-top: 0;
margin-bottom: 0;
}
entrytbl {
display: subtable;
border-style: solid;
border-width: 1;
}
---
All the support code written for DocBook should work whatever is the
namespace choosen for CALS tables (i.e. entry or foo:entry or
bar:entry). If this is not the case, simply tell us and we will fix this
bug ASAP.
---
PS: CALS tables are *horrible* to use. You may consider using XHTML
tables instead.
---
PS2: If you just need simple tables, it is much easier to design your
own from scratch, style them using plain CSS, and provide no special
commands to edit them. (Just provide a few named element templates for
commonly used tables.)
