Re: [docbook-apps] Commands, image borders, and paper size

["Bob Stayton" <bobs@sagehill.net>]

Hi Eitan,
Some answers below.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eitan Zabari" <eitanz@jungo.com>
To: <docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 7:00 AM
Subject: [docbook-apps] Commands, image borders, and paper size


> Hello Bob,
>
> Thank you for your answers - they were extremely helpful and I was able 
> to get the features working in no time. I have a few more, if I may.
>
> 1. I was able to use the entities as you explained, to create a "command" 
> that represents a product name. However, in LaTex we were able to pass 
> parameters to such a command. For example:
>
> \newcommand{\placediagram}[2]
> {
>   \begin{figure}[H]
>     \center
>     \framebox{\includegraphics[keepaspectratio]{images/#1}}
>     \caption{#2}
>     \label{#1}
>   \end{figure}
> }
>
> This way, we could write "\placediagram{<image name>}{<image caption>}"
>
> Can we do something like that with DocBook?

XSL stylesheets accept command line parameters.  If you set up entity 
content as an element that the stylesheet can match on, then the stylesheet 
can insert a parameter value. For example:

<!ENTITY productname '<phrase role="productname"/>'  >

and place &productname; in your document content where you want the 
variable to resolve.

Then you add this to your stylesheet:

<xsl:template match="phrase[@role = 'productname']">
  <xsl:value-of select="$product.name"/>
</xsl:template>

And then pass a parameter on the command line like product.name="ABC, Inc."

The entity is resolved by the parser at runtime, before the stylesheet sees 
the file.

However, this would not work for attribute values.  If it is for an image 
fileref, you would need to handle it differently.  Most attributes are not 
processed by a template, but @fileref is, so you can customize it.  Use 
something like this in your document:

<imagedata fileref="#product.name.image#"/>

and add this template:

<xsl:template match="@fileref">
  <xsl:choose>
    <xsl:when test="string(.) = '#product.name.image#'">
      <xsl:value-of select="$product.name.image"/>
    </xsl:when>
    <xsl:otherwise>
      <xsl:value-of select="."/>
    </xsl:otherwise>
  </xsl:choose>
</xsl:template.

No entity is involved, as it is just processing the string.  For that 
matter, you don't really need an entity in the first example, you could 
just enter <phrase role="productname"/> in your document.

> 2. Is there a way to add a simple line border to images at the 
> code/command level (and not graphically on the images)?

There is no parameter for this, so you would need toc customize the 
template with match="mediaobject|mediaobjectco" in fo/graphics.xsl.  In the 
fo:block, add a property like

border="0.5pt solid black"

> 3. When compiling A5 format, the paper size seems to be smaller (in PDF), 
> however the text is not resized, but rather spread to the next page, over 
> the header. A5 has a larger page total than its A4 counterpart.

The stylesheet does not change any font sizes when the paper size changes. 
You might want to setup a separate customization layer for each page size 
you need, and place it in parameters for adjusting all sizes.  Then each of 
those could import your main customization, which in turn imports 
docbook.xsl


Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
DocBook Consulting
bobs@sagehill.net