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Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] So, no books? (was Re: [docbook-apps] Re: Future of XSL-FO)


On Thu, May 10, 2012 10:43 pm, Nic Gibson wrote:
> On 10 May 2012, at 13:18, Tony Graham wrote:
...
>> Developing software requires time and/or money (to fund the time).  Open
>> source software depends on people having the itch to solve that
>> particular
>> problem, not having more important claims on the time it would take to
>> do
>> it, and putting in the time to write the software.  Commercial software
>> companies use money to motivate the itch and the spending of time by
>> their
>> developers, and they use your money when they sell you the result as
>> their
>> motivation.  To dismiss the open source implementations for not
>> delivering
>> better typography while being prepared to pay real money for commercial
>> software ignores the possibility of pay real money to improve the open
>> source implementations.  If there was, say, a kickstarter.com project to
>> improve the typography of FOP (which I am *not* setting myself up to
>> do),
>> would anyone here even make a pledge? (I'll get off my soapbox now.)
>
> I would certainly donate. I would almost always prefer Open Source over
> commercial where possible.

As I said, I'm not angling to be kickstarted to work on FOP.

>>> It definitely isn't a technology for spread based layouts thought.
>>
>> There is a fo:spread-page-master in a previous "Design Notes" [1] but
>> that
>> has yet to be merged into the full Working Draft document.
>
> I'll live in hope :)

There isn't really a way to 'vote' for features that you'd like, but if
you are in contact with any commercial vendors, you may be able to ask
them if they have plans for anything like that.

>>> We've done proofs of concept on FO based publishing with two large UK
>>> publishers and are looking at a third. The second client is looking at
>>> how
>>> to use the tools in a production environment at the moment.
>>>
>>> The biggest problem is the lack of support for signatures and that is
>>> in
>>
>> Antenna House has extended its allowed values of the "force-page-count"
>> property [2] so, e.g., a page sequence can be padded with blank pages to
>> force a defined page count.
>
> Yes, we've looked at that. In something like InDesign it would be done by
> very careful tweaking of leading and kerning values where possible. Blank
> pages are generally something to avoid.

The XSL-FO 2.0 WD allows for copyfitting both by alternative content [1]
and adjusting properties [2], while still leaving the
implementation/algorithm up to the formatter.

The approach for xmlroff was always to be that it would do one quick pass
at formatting and then, if you wanted better rather than faster, there
would be pluggable modules that would do varying levels of chiropractic to
get things sitting properly, and that could encompass working on a page
sequence or even the whole document to get the page count right. 
Unfortunately, the only pluggable modules that currently exist are just
demos that show the FO and area trees.

>> More to the point, with XSL-FO, it's never been clear whether things
>> like
>> signatures are part of its remit or something for a job control language
>> to handle.  For example, XSl-FO has only ever had a hazy notion of where
>> the binding edge lies.  But if you want to discuss things like that
>> further, the best place at present would be the W3C Print and Page
>> Layout
>> Community Group [3], which anyone can join for free (and I happen to be
>> the current Chair).
>
> True. If one is avoiding blank pages then the layout engine needs to
> handle it
> though.

The idea of batch pagination followed by a GUI for tweaking the pagination
has somehow never really caught on.

>>> the 2.0 wishlist. One of the big issues we've seen with our clients is
>>> that publishers see the W3C as irrelevant to them. This means that
>>> publishing industry representation on the FO committee is poor.
>>
>> More input from the publishing industry, even on the Community Group,
>> would be welcome.
>
> I'll do what I can with our clients. The biggest issue seems to be the W3
> in the name!
> Publishers don't see 'web standards' as part of their world (this is not
> strictly
> true any more but the IDPF is where they tend to be).

XSL was part of Jon Bosak's original three-part vision of XML, XSL, and
XLL [3].  It's hard to see how XSL (especially since this was before there
was a separate XSLT) would have gone anywhere else, even if many other
people find it hard to see where good quality formatting with things like
ToCs and indexes fits in with a web of HTML pages.

Regards,


Tony Graham                                   tgraham@mentea.net
Consultant                                 http://www.mentea.net
Mentea       13 Kelly's Bay Beach, Skerries, Co. Dublin, Ireland
 --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
    XML, XSL-FO and XSLT consulting, training and programming

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xslfo20/#fo_alternative-copyfit-content
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/xslfo20/#adjustable-properties
[3] http://www.xml.com/pub/a/w3j/s3.bosak.html


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