Re: [docbook-apps] annotating programlistings

[Michael Smith <smith@xml-doc.org>]

Stefan Seefeld <seefeld@sympatico.ca> writes:

> Interesting ! The above seems to work well if I embedd the <co.../> elements
> into my program text. However, if I xinclude the program text and provide
> an <areaspec/> to generate the map it doesn't.
> 
> That might be the part that's provided via those extensions that aren't 
> provided by xsltproc.

Right. The DocBook HTML and FO stylesheets don't support
extension-less processing of Areaspec, at all. If you want to
generate HTML and FO output for instances that contain Areaspec,
you currently must use Saxon or Xalan and have the DocBook XSLT
Java extensions in your classpath.

But you can do extension-less processing to generate PDF output
for instances containing Areaspec, if you use dblatex:

  http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/releases/download.html

dblatex also supports extension-less insertion-by-reference of
files in a Programlisting or Screen using Textdata (or
Inlinemediaobjet/Imagedata or Inlinegraphic). The DocBook HTML and
FO stylesheets require the DocBook XSLT Java extensions for that.

Anyway, there is no technical reason preventing the possibility of
enabling that stuff to work with xsltproc (actually, with libxslt).

A couple years back, Norm started work on writing up the
extensions in Python using bindings for libxslt. The initial code
he wrote implemented just the adjustColumnWidths function. But I
think he quit after writing that up because he couldn't get it to
run without crashing.

But the cause must have been some bug in libxslt or in the code
for the bindings, because when I tested it recently, I found that
it works now. And now there are also some alternative Python
bindings for libxslt and libxml (http://codespeak.net/lxml/) that
might be a better choice for writing the extensions.

So maybe Norm will start back up on work on the Python
implementation of the extensions. Or maybe somebody else from the
project will. In the mean time, though, if anybody else wants to
take a shot at it, code contributions are always welcome. :)

  --Mike

-- 
Michael Smith
http://sideshowbarker.net/

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