Re: [docbook-apps] Document properties in FOP are out of date

[Chris Ridd <chrisridd@mac.com>]

On 10 Dec 2010, at 18:16, Bob Stayton wrote:

> Hi Chris,
> Yes, that template is out of date since it does not support author/orgname from DB5. Could you please file a bug report on the DocBook SourceForge site about it?

I'm ahead of you already: Bug 3132862. It sounds like author/orgname is the markup I should be sticking with.

> Including corpauthor from DB4 in the DB5 namespaced stylesheets is not a concern. Currently the stylesheets are written to support both DocBook 4 and 5.  The namespaced version of the stylesheets for DocBook 5 are generated from the non-namespaced version by a script, so they are nearly identical except for the use of the namespace prefix on element matches.

Yes, the only problem it caused me was that I searched the templates to see what markup it might look for, and then added the element(s) in my doc to fit. A slight case of the tail wagging the dog, but sometimes it is hard finding the "right" element to use in DB :-)

Obviously that's a slightly risky strategy given the stylesheets cater for multiple DB versions.

> Supporting both DB4 and DB5 with the same stylesheets is possible for two reasons:
> 
> 1.  Elements in both versions have the same meaning in DB5 as they do in DB4, in general.
> 
> 2.  In a pattern-matching language like XSLT, a stylesheet can contain patterns that never match, but don't create problems.  Since corpauthor would not be seen in a DB5 document, that pattern would never match there.  Likewise, adding support for author/orgname will not harm the processing of a DB4 document, as that pattern would not be seen there.
> 
> So far we have been able to maintain one set of stylesheets for both versions.  This is highly desirable so they don't get out of synch.

I totally agree.

Cheers,

Chris