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Subject: RE: [docbook-apps] DocBook HTML transform with Frames ?


Take a look at some of the FUSE documentation starting here:
http://fusesource.com/documentation/, 

such as this example:
http://fusesource.com/docs/esb/3.4/getting_started/index.html

I haven't been at Iona for two years, so someone from there may want to fill in some newer information. But as I remember, all we had to do was to generate the frameset index.html file independently of DocBook with a very simple XSL file. You can see how simple the frameset file is by viewing the page source (Ctrl+U in Firefox). 

The frameset file is set up so that the DocBook-generated HTML pages go into the righthand column, the single DocBook-generated TOC page goes into the lefthand column. Then some non-DocBook header information goes into the top bar across the page.

As I remember, the basics aren't hard, and are as simple as described above. But getting the details right was very hard. The main problems were that different browsers handle frames differently, and it was very easy to get into a state where the righthand frame contained another two frames with TOC left and pages right, and another two frames in THAT righthand frame, ad infinitum. This situation was handled with some very clever JavaScript that I wish I could claim as my own. (Iona is lucky to have a terrific JavaScript programmer.) 

Another problem to solve was the styling of the TOC page to fit the lefthand column, but that was mostly just CSS work. Trickier was to keep the TOC synced with the righthand page. Try paging through a document with the Next button and notice that the highlight in the TOC column follows the current page. That was more JavaScript magic by the same guy.

Notice the Toggle Frames button, which takes the page in and out of the containing frameset page. The Link To button puts only the righthand frame's URL in the address bar so that you can copy and paste it elsewhere. Without this button, you always get the frameset page's URL in the address bar, which makes passing around page-specific URLs tricky.

And despite the praiseworthy JavaScript, the design degrades gracefully if your browser has JavaScript disabled, with frames preserved. 

I was proud to be part of this effort in its early days, and I'm amazed at how far Iona has taken the design since then.


-----Original Message-----
From: Johan Persson [mailto:johanp@aditus.nu] 
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 2:16 PM
To: docbook-apps
Subject: [docbook-apps] DocBook HTML transform with Frames ?

Hi,

Before I try to re-invent the wheel I was wondering if anyone new of some 
alternative DocBook XSL that would produce HTML with frames?

What I'm after is to have a tree-view of the TOC in a frame (to the left with 
some javascript) and the actual content in a separate frame to the right.

(Since I'm new to XSL it is probably a good exercise to do this- but I rather 
not be inventing the wheel again)

Thanks !
Johan



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