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Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] Small questions about what tools to use


Dear Jirka

> Could you be more specific about complex page-sequence? What it will 
> allow?
> BTW is there any further development done on OpenJade? I remember that 
> there were some serious limitations like footnotes in RTF backend, 
> multiline footnotes/headers. Any progress here?

Yes, I can develop on this.
I am directing the final studies project of one student. His project is 
developing OpenJade. Two years ago he already implemented full support 
in OpenJade for almost all Flow Objects, including page-sequence and 
column-set-sequence. The OpenJade currently stored in the CVS hasn't yet 
been published as a stable version mainly due to lack of support in the 
backend. Right now he has started a second project whose aim is to 
implement support for page-sequence in the tex backend. We plan to have 
it finished within some months, because he is doing more enhancements 
before:
-in a first stage we plan to remove the JadeTex tool and absorb its 
functionality into OpenJade, generating plain TeX directly from 
OpenJade. This way, people who know TeX can edit the result and adapt to 
their needs. Right now OpenJade generates TeX templates, and they are 
not editable.
-with the knowledge from this first stage, new development will be done 
to generate TeX output for page-sequence.

For those who don't know about DSSSL and page-sequence, right now the 
output can only be done with what is called simple-page-sequence, which, 
it's name sais it all, is a simple kind of page. Limitations it has: 
headers and footers limited to one line, all pages have the same 
structure, only one region per page (this is the limitation you name 
about rtf). page-sequence is the most complex format, which allows 
several regions per page, headers and footers of each region can be 
placed at your own will, it allows you to define a column division of 
the regions, etc.

The problem for placing footnotes at the bottom of one page is that it 
calls for two regions: one region for the text flow, and one region at 
the bottom of the page for the footnotes. There is also a syncronization 
problem, because you want footnotes in a page, to refer to footnote 
marks in this page. All these questions are addressed in page-sequence, 
and simple-page-sequence can't handle it.

In addition to this page-sequence development, we hope to correct some 
bugs in OpenJade with the redesign of the TeX backend, like conditional 
spaces that don't perform as conditional. These are spaces that appear 
at the top of a page, which shouldn't be there and are only thought for 
the case when they are placed in the middle of a page for separating two 
things (let's say, a final section paragraph and a following section title).

I hope I explained correctly.

Javi


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