Re: [docbook-apps] Getting a mapping between id's and output files

[Bob Stayton <bobs@sagehill.net>]

Hi Tom,

You can generate something like what you need already using the olink mechanism. If you set the stylesheet parameter 'collect.xref.targets' to a value of 'yes', then when you process your document for HTML output you will also generate a target.db file that is used in olinking (there's a parameter to rename that file). It is an XML file that contains all potential cross reference targets for that document. In that file, the <div> elements hold the info for the hierarchical elements, and <obj> elements contain the info for the nonhierarchical elements (tables, figures, etc.). For each, its targetptr attribute contains the element's id, and its href attribute contains the link to that element in your output.

Your app could open that file, or you could further process it with a simple stylesheet to refine it.

Check out this chapter in my book on olinking:

http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/Olinking.html

Bob

On 11/15/2022 3:49 PM, Tom Moore wrote:

Hi all

I have a desktop app and I have written documentation for this app in DocBook. I am producing webhelp and posting these html pages online. From within my application I would like to be able to open pages from the online webhelp in a local browser. All of this works nicely so far.

The problem is knowing which page to open for a given topic. To solve this problem I would like to produce a file that contains the mappings between all of the id attributes that are declared in my document and the name of the chunked html output file that contains the id. Ideally the mapping would be to the chunk plus anchor if the element containing the id is not the outermost section, chapter, appendix, etc of the chunk. Then from within my app I can look up the mapping for a given id, and request the browser to open the desired page.

I expect that this is something that can be done using xslt technology, but I do not know where to begin. I am at the skill level where I have made a few small customizations in a project that used xslt, but I don't really know how to go about opening a file and writing output, where to find the id value, where to find the chunk name, etc. In other words a beginner looking at the start of a steep learning curve.

Can someone point me in the right direction for this task? I notice that the javahelp output creates a mapping file that is almost right, except that it does not use the chunk names derived from the <?dbhtml filename=""?> processing instructions, which I am using in order to get links that don't shift around as I add chapters and sections. Is the javahelp tool a good starting point or would it be better to start from scratch? Is there a book that you would recommend that is good to learn from?

Thanks,

Tom