Re: [docbook-apps] Ajax HTML format wanted

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

Hi Edwin,

I, for one, would like to encourage the kinds of innovations that you are suggesting.  From my perspective, these would not necessarily be included in the stock distribution, but could be a customization layer made available to anyone who wants them.

 

As a start, I'd like to distinguish between the implementation of the features in CSS/_javascript_/etc., and the hooks that are needed in the DocBook HTML output that enable those features. Currently the DocBook distro provides support for CSS without providing much actual CSS styling. Similarly the stylesheets provide params and placeholder templates for injecting _javascript_ code into head elements, without supplying any of that code.  I'm curious as to how far you can get with the existing support for CSS and _javascript_.

 

If you find during your development that you need changes to the standard output to enable you to layer on your enhancements, I'd like to hear about those base changes. Those enabling changes could perhaps be included in the base distribution to make such development easier, without adding the actual new features to the output.

 

Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
bobs@sagehill.net

From: Edwin Aldridge

Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 2:56 AM

To: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org

Subject: [docbook-apps] Ajax HTML format wanted

I am writing a set of docbook articles which I would like presented on the web but I find the HTML and XHTML formats really clunky. Aesthetics asice, they certainly do not take advantage of the medium's capabilities and am looking for something a bit smarter.

Does anyone know of, or would anyone be interested in developing, stylesheet variant which does something like the following:

* present chapters down one side - just one level, definitely no tree structures dancing before your eyes

* present first level sections as tabs across the top

* present lower level sections as headings (writing to a limit of two levels is a useful discipline)

* present sidebars on the side (like the FO transforms) but say as accordians

* present foot notes and glossary terms as pinable popups onclick or mouseover

This could also make use of the much wider screens now commonly available, e.g. giving lots of display room for sidebars. It would make better use of internal links and non-serial reading approaches (which readers often don#'t  do with dead tree media and never do with the web). 

There are a few practical challenges - like making the doc display correctly when someone links to an internal URL, but I am sure this is not beyond the wit of someone with good JQuery skills (or similar).

Does anyone know if there is anything out there like that? Or would anyone be interested enough to do something like this?

Regards

Edwin Aldridge