RE: [docbook] Customizing Xrefs to Appendices

[Morgan Hayward <MorganHayward@ruggedcom.com>]

Absolutely brilliant.  That did the trick.  Thank you, Bob!

Regards,
Morgan

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Stayton [mailto:bobs@sagehill.net] 
Sent: April-25-13 7:33 PM
To: Morgan Hayward; docbook@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [docbook] Customizing Xrefs to Appendices

Hi Morgan,
I don't think you can do this with just the gentext mechanism.  In the l10n files, "l:context" is a named context for gentext, not the XML context of an element in the document hierarchy.  So that file cannot distinguish if a section is in an appendix or not.

When an xref is being resolved, the stylesheet locates the target element, and applies templates in mode="xref-to" to generate the text for it. 
Normally those templates apply templates in mode="object.xref.markup", which triggers the gentext process using the l:template for that element.

You can create a custom template in mode="xref-to" for sections in an appendix and assemble your custom text there.  Something like this:

<!-- the context node here is appendix//section --> <xsl:template match="section[ancestor::appendix]" mode="xref-to">

  <!-- generate the word "Appendix" -->
  <xsl:call-template name="gentext">
    <xsl:with-param name="key">appendix</xsl:with-param>
  </xsl:call-template>

  <xsl:text> </xsl:text>

  <!-- generate the appendix letter -->
  <xsl:apply-templates select="ancestor::appendix" mode="label.markup"/>

  <!-- insert punctuation -->
  <xsl:text>, '</xsl:text>

  <!-- generate the title for the section -->
  <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="title.markup"/>
  <xsl:text>'</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>


Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
bobs@sagehill.net


From: Morgan Hayward
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 1:46 PM
To: docbook@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [docbook] Customizing Xrefs to Appendices


In our DocBook customization, we've removed all section numbering in our appendices, but we still have xref's in some of our manuals that reference those sections.  They end up displaying as "Section E.3, 'Section Title'". 
We would like them to display as "Appendix E, 'Section Title'".

I understand how to create an l:template for a specific element, but I'm lost when it comes to defining the context.  Does anyone know how to tell DocBook to use a different xref format for a section in appendix compared to a section in a chapter?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,
Morgan


Morgan Hayward
Technical Writer, Documentation

RuggedCom, A Siemens Company
Office: (905) 482-4599 | Toll Free: 1 (888) 264-0006
300 Applewood Cres. Concord, Ontario L4K 5C7



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