Re: [docbook-apps] divider feature

[Pierre Attar <pat@tireme.fr>]

Bob,

Thanks a lot for your idea ... seems to be much more better thant mine, 
using note.

Of course I know that docbook is not a formatting language but, two arguments:
- I'm quite sure that we today need high level device independent 
formatting language and, at this level, docbook is a good candidate. That 
is, I assume, the reason why so many people are using it, everywhere and 
not only in tech doc field. It is much more better that all office formats 
because it takes multiple media outputs.
- if you parametrize docbook, let say adding 20% of new elements, what is 
the best way of achieving formatting of the whole 100% information ? Write 
my own stylesheet or map my 20% specific to docbook element and then reuse 
all wonderfull material created ?
I've tested the first solution for about 6 years and have now switch to the 
second one.
The advantage ? maintenance and multiple output support !
The disadvantage ? First, the stylesheet it heavy to dynamically load in 
framework like cocoon; second, it may goes to complexity if needed to 
change big feature usage such as, for example, remove all HTML tables to go 
to DIV CSS management.


Best regards, Pierre

At 20:59 12/05/2005, Bob Stayton wrote:

>DocBook isn't a formatting language, so it doesn't have container elements
>to enable formatting of an arbitrary collection of block elements.  Is there
>some semantic meaning to the grouping of elements?
>
>One element you might consider is informalexample.  It can contain any
>number of block elements, and doesn't require a title.  With a role
>attribute, you could probably output an fo:block container with various
>inheritable attributes for print output.
>
>Bob Stayton
>Sagehill Enterprises
>DocBook Consulting
>bobs@sagehill.net
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Pierre Attar" <pat@tireme.fr>
>To: <docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 4:04 AM
>Subject: [docbook-apps] divider feature
>
>
>
> >Hi,
>
>I have a model that makes a lot of customization of docbook at block and
>inline components level.
>Nevertheless, these components needs, at least, to be formatted.
>
>My application does the following :
>
>docbook customized --> docbook plus @role customization --> whatever pdf or
>html
>
>My problem :
>In the intermediate docbook, the role is sometimes not enough and I need
>some kind of divider (as in HTML) for being able to apply formatting to a
>set of docbook components.
>
>Which docbook element should I use ? I tried with note element
>customization but it becomes difficult to make the difference between real
>notes and "false" divider notes.
>
>Any idea  on this kind of application ?
>
>By the way and for information: I've decide even for other XML document
>models I manage and that are not based on docbook to even use docbook as an
>intermediate formatting model.
>It is at this time only an engineering model but really interesting for
>reuse purpose: I can either format using XSL free stylesheet or comercial
>formatting tools such as Epic or framemaker, reusing a lot of engineering
>yet sut up in the commercial tool distribution.
>
>
>
>
>Pierre Attar (mailto:pat@tireme.fr)
>Consultant en informatique documentaire XML
>Consultant in Structured Document engineering
>
>Projet "Mutualiser l'effort de montée en compétences sur XML"
>http://www.mutu-xml.org/index.html
>
>
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Pierre Attar (mailto:pat@tireme.fr)
Consultant en informatique documentaire XML
Consultant in Structured Document engineering

Projet "Mutualiser l'effort de montée en compétences sur XML"
http://www.mutu-xml.org/index.html