docbook: Thread: Re: LDP XSLT stylesheet (was Re: Gnome Help 2.0)

On 18 Jul 2001 13:59:36 -0400, Dan York wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> > into HTML for rendering.  I certainly agree that customizations are
> > needed, since the GNOME customizations probably aren't appropraite for
> > the LDP docs, and vice-versa.  I'm not sure how we'll find the
> > stylesheets, perhaps John can answer better than I.
> 
> Okay, am I the *only* one from here subscribed to the ####@####.####
> mailing list?  I sent out a sample LDP XSLT stylesheet to that list back
> on July 5th:
> 
> http://list.linuxdoc.org/archive/index.htm?2:mss:101:200107:blelgagecbakmkflfgfc
> 
> There were *no* comments about it, so I assumed everyone else was either:
> a) too busy; or b) not experimenting with XSLT.  I guess I did not 
> consider that there could be "c) most people are not subscribed to the list".

Oops.  I'm subscribed, but seem to have misplaced that email.  

> I named the stylesheet 'ldp-html-chunk.xsl' because it chunks out a 
> DocBook XML document into many different (linked) HTML files.  Rather

The -chunk in the filename isn't "required" to get chunking anymore,
from what I've been reading, although I haven't had time to play with
xslt in a few days to try it out.

> than the style of 'ldp.dsl' where we have a single stylesheet that is 
> called differently for print and HTML, I would recommend that we have
> different stylesheets for use depending on whether you want to chunk
> the document or create a single HTML page.

What are the benefits of doing this?  I can't see any immediately, but
I'm sure they exist, just out of site.

> And since the single HTML page and chunking would be identical except
> for the underlying file from Norm's stylesheets that is called
> ('docbook.xsl' vs. 'chunk.xsl'), it might be worthwhile to have
> an 'ldp-html-common.xsl' that was then imported into 
> 'ldp-html-chunk.xsl' and 'ldp-html-single.xsl'.  Each of those two
> files could simply be something like (depending on paths):

Ah, I think I see now.  This sounds pretty workable to me.

> In any event, here's an XSLT customization layer for folks to try out.
> It should do most of what ldp.dsl does.

Thanks Dan!  I'll give it a look as soon as I get the chance.
	Greg

Greg,

> Oops.  I'm subscribed, but seem to have misplaced that email.  

Yes, and interestingly, I sent my message to ####@####.#### and
you replied back to ####@####.####  Fun, fun, fun..

> > I named the stylesheet 'ldp-html-chunk.xsl' because it chunks out a 
> > DocBook XML document into many different (linked) HTML files.  Rather
> 
> The -chunk in the filename isn't "required" to get chunking anymore,
> from what I've been reading, although I haven't had time to play with
> xslt in a few days to try it out.
 
Correct.  It is no longer required as of Norm's 1.41 stylesheets. I kept
it in the filename because it seemed to make sense to do.

> > than the style of 'ldp.dsl' where we have a single stylesheet that is 
> > called differently for print and HTML, I would recommend that we have
> > different stylesheets for use depending on whether you want to chunk
> > the document or create a single HTML page.
> 
> What are the benefits of doing this?  I can't see any immediately, but
> I'm sure they exist, just out of site.
<snip>
> Ah, I think I see now.  This sounds pretty workable to me.

The major issue is that Norm changed the way he does stylesheets from
DSSSL to XSL.  With the DSSSL stylesheets, regardless of whether you 
wanted to generate a single HTML file or multiple HTML files, you still
called "html/docbook.dsl"... well, actually, as I think about it, the
DSSSL stylesheets **ONLY** generated multiple HTML files. You had to call
(open)jade with "-V nochunks" to get a single HTML file.

With the XSL stylesheets, the behavior is reversed. If you call 
'html/docbook.xsl', you get a *single* HTML file.  You have to call
'html/chunk.xsl' to generate multiple HTML files.  Thus, we will need
to have multiple stylesheets depending on whether someone wants to chunk
out the file or not.

> > In any event, here's an XSLT customization layer for folks to try out.
> > It should do most of what ldp.dsl does.
> 
> Thanks Dan!  I'll give it a look as soon as I get the chance.

No problem.  I just did it as a learning exercise and thought it might
be useful to others.

Regards,
Dan

-- 
Dan York, Director of Training        ####@####.####
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