Re: [docbook-apps] <literallayout> rendered with lots of internal whitespace

[Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.com>]

On Fri, Sep 05, 2003 at 10:01:06AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> 
>   (i'm on a roll this morning, and that's just based on decaf.  most
> of these observations are based on a document that i'm throwing
> together that demonstrate how to use a sizable number of docbook
> elements by showing samples of their use.  so i'm getting to see
> little glitches in the PDF generation i might not have noticed
> before.  the toolchain is xsltproc + FOP.)
> 
>   the latest weirdness is the rendering of a simple 
> 
> <literallayout>
>  Now is the time
>    for all good men
>  to come to the aid
>    of their party.
> </literallayout>
> 
>   an absolutely stock, non-customized PDF rendering appears as:
> 
>            Now          is         the         time
>             for       all        good           men
>         to       come      to         the       aid
>                of             their           party.
> 
> in other words, all sorts of inserted whitespace, and left-justified
> for no reason that i know of.
> 
>   OTOH, if i change this ever so slightly to
> 
> <literallayout class="monospaced">...
> 
> it's perfect -- courier font, proper indentation:
> 
>  Now is the time
>    for all good men
>  to come to the aid
>    of their party.
> 
> 
> any reason why a generic literallayout would generate the first
> example above?  the example shown in the online docbook TDG is
> wrapped inside a <blockquote>, but a <para> is apparently a legal
> parent as well, which is what i'm using.

I think this may be a bug in the attribute-set definitions.
The 'verbatim.properties' attribute set does not set
text-align="start", so FOP reverts to the inherited 
text-align="justify".  The 'monospace.verbatim.properties'
attribute-set uses 'verbatim.properties' and adds
text-align="start".

This seems to have been done intentionally, but I'm not
sure why.  I think all of the whitespace preserving
properties should be in these attribute-sets.
These would include:

text-align='start'
wrap-option='no-wrap'
white-space-collapse='false'
linefeed-treatment="preserve"

I'll ask Norm about it.

-- 

Bob Stayton                                 400 Encinal Street
Publications Architect                      Santa Cruz, CA  95060
Technical Publications                      voice: (831) 427-7796
The SCO Group                               fax:   (831) 429-1887
                                            email: bobs@sco.com