Implementing DocBook assemblies with XProc

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

Folks,

I continued to tinker with assemblies while I was offline the last
couple of weeks. I now have a fairly complete solution based on an
XSLT stylesheet that generates an XProc pipeline.

I've moved a few things around for convenience. I added a <transform>
element to modules so that more than one transform can easily be
specified.

I've also decided that inheriting the preceding-sibling's "renderas"
is more confusing than not. Consider this example:

<structure xml:id="user-guide">
  <output renderas="book"/>
  <info>
    <title>Widget User Guide</title>
  </info>
  <module resourceref="full-toc"/>
  <module resourceref="tut1">
    <output renderas="chapter"/>
  </module>
  <module resourceref="tut2">
    <output renderas="chapter"/>
  </module>
  <module resourceref="task1">
    <output renderas="chapter"/>
  </module>
  <module>
    <output renderas="appendix"/>
    <info>
      <title>Troubleshooting</title>
    </info>
    <module resourceref="tut3">
      <output renderas="section"/>
      <info>
        <title>Troubleshooting spindle and bearing problems</title>
      </info>
      <module resourceref="tut5" contentonly="true"/>
      <module resourceref="task4">
        <output renderas="section"/>
      </module>
      <module resourceref="task3"/>
    </module>
  </module>
  <module resourceref="index"/>
</structure>

Having my index turned automatically into an appendix was quite
puzzling at first.

I'm still wondering if anyone sees any major functionality holes in my
earlier documentation of assembly.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

P.S. I also submitted a paper proposal on this topic to the XML Prague
2010 conference.

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | It is good to have an end to
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | journey toward; but it is the
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | journey that matters, in the
                                   | end.--Ursula K. LeGuin

PGP signature