Inasmuch as... » xmlroff http://inasmuch.as ...Life's but a walking shadow Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:21:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 XML Summer School 2011 ends on high note http://inasmuch.as/2011/09/26/xml-summer-school-2011-high-not/ http://inasmuch.as/2011/09/26/xml-summer-school-2011-high-not/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 08:46:59 +0000 tkg http://inasmuch.as/?p=888 Continue reading →]]> Inasmuch as my final “XSLT and XSL-FO toolbox of tips and tricks” session was well received, XML Summer School 2011 finished on a high note. My other sessions, “Developing and Testing in XSLT” with Jeni Tennison in the “XSLT/XQuery” track and a five-minute Ignite-format talk on EPUB, also went well, but it was that final talk in the “Publishing” track that got the most visible reactions.

Strangely, it was the existence of the xmlroff testing module that got several people most excited. I say ‘strangely’ because I’ve been mentioning it in presentations for years (including three days earlier in the “XSLT/XQuery” track) without it seeming the stand-out feature of any of those talks, yet this time I had someone finding its URL and downloading it before I’d barely finished the slide about it. But I am in no way complaining.  It was good to see such a level of interest, and I hope it works out for him and the others. I’m also hoping to get some new feedback on how well it works, since although I’ve been using it (and tweaking it) for years, it doesn’t garner much feedback from other users.

My other reason for being pleased with the success of the XSLT and XSL-FO talk was that it meant that I’d kept to the high standard of the other talks in the track by Henry Thompson, Norman Walsh, and Sebastian Rahtz. The talks in the “XSLT/XQuery” track by Priscilla Walmsley (track chair) and Michael Kay (and, as always, Jeni’s delivery) and the other Ignite talks were very good, too, but I thought the other “Publishing” track talks were particularly good. Quite an achievement considering that this was the first year that the XML Summer School had a separate “Publishing” track, so credit also goes to Peter Flynn, as track chair, for putting the track together in the first place.

I know the above reads like I’m in a mutual admiration society, but it really was a week of very good talks.

]]> http://inasmuch.as/2011/09/26/xml-summer-school-2011-high-not/feed/ 0 Sizing a graphic to the font size in XSL FO http://inasmuch.as/2009/03/16/sizing-a-graphic-to-the-font-size/ http://inasmuch.as/2009/03/16/sizing-a-graphic-to-the-font-size/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:02:59 +0000 tkg http://tkg.menteith.com/?p=155 Continue reading →]]> Making a poster about XSLT usage in xmlroff for XML Prague, the fun moment was replacing the uses of “xmlroff” with the xmlroff logo.

xmlroff-logo-font-size

To do the deed, I added some XSL attributes to the <inline-graphic> element in my well-formed XML.  I also made an entity declaration for &xmlroff; so I wouldn’t have to repeat the markup each time (and so, having got it right once, it would be right everywhere).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE poster [
<!ENTITY xmlroff '<inline-graphic src="xmlroff.svg" alignment-adjust="-22.5&#37;"
height="from-parent(&apos;font-size&apos;)"/>' >
]>
<poster>
<title>Using XSLT in &xmlroff; for C Code Generation and XSL FO Testing</title>
<body>
<intro>
<para>&xmlroff; (http://xmlroff.org) is a fast, free, high-quality,...

where:

  • height="from-parent(&apos;font-size&apos;)" sets the graphic height to the current font-size
  • alignment-adjust="-22.5&#37;" (where “&#37;” is the numeric reference for “%”) moves the bottom of the graphic down so the baseline of the logo text lines up with the baseline of the regular text. When the alignment-adjust value is a percentage, it is calculated relative to the height, so it remains correct when the font size changes.

The XSL attributes are just copied through when transforming to XSL FO:

<xsl:template match="inline-graphic">
  <fo:external-graphic
    src="url('{@src}')"
    xsl:use-attribute-sets="graphic-atts"
    content-height="scale-to-fit"
    content-width="scale-to-fit"
    scaling-method="resample-any-method">
    <xsl:copy-of select="@height | @width | @content-height | @content-width |
@scaling-method | @alignment-adjust"/>
  </fo:external-graphic>
</xsl:template>

The result is slightly more interesting text, but also more readable where sentences and paragraphs that started with the all-lowercase “xmlroff” now start with the xmlroff logo.

]]> http://inasmuch.as/2009/03/16/sizing-a-graphic-to-the-font-size/feed/ 0 xmlroff 0.6.2, libfo-examples 0.6.0 http://inasmuch.as/2009/03/12/xmlroff-062/ http://inasmuch.as/2009/03/12/xmlroff-062/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:38:23 +0000 tkg http://tkg.menteith.com/?p=148 Continue reading →]]> xmlroff 0.6.2 and libfo-examples-0.6.0 are now available from
http://xmlroff.org/download/xmlroff-0.6.2.tar.gz and
http://xmlroff.org/download/libfo-examples-0.6.0.tar.gz

libfo-examples 0.6.0 adds xmlroff-gtktree as a work-in-progress
demonstration of using a GTK+ tree widget to view the FO tree with what
will eventually be a side panel showing the current FO’s properties.

xmlroff 0.6.2 really only has some changes in the header files necessary
to support libfo-examples 0.6.0.

The next xmlroff version will be 0.7.0, which will have some support for
static fo:static-content.

]]> http://inasmuch.as/2009/03/12/xmlroff-062/feed/ 0 xmlroff 0.6.1 http://inasmuch.as/2008/10/04/xmlroff-061/ http://inasmuch.as/2008/10/04/xmlroff-061/#comments Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:29:38 +0000 tkg http://tkg.menteith.com/2008/10/04/xmlroff-061/ Continue reading →]]> xmlroff 0.6.1 is at http://xmlroff.org/download/xmlroff-0.6.1.tar.gz.

xmlroff 0.6.1 features SVG external graphics rendered as vectors in the Cairo backend and table column order respecting writing mode.

Thanks go to lode leroy for the Cairo fix.

xmlroff is discussed on the xmlroff-list@xmlroff.org mailing list (subscription required) and on the #xmlroff channel at oftc.net.

]]> http://inasmuch.as/2008/10/04/xmlroff-061/feed/ 0 xmlroff on Ohloh http://inasmuch.as/2008/07/20/xmlroff-on-ohloh/ http://inasmuch.as/2008/07/20/xmlroff-on-ohloh/#comments Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:22:13 +0000 tkg http://tkg.menteith.com/2008/07/20/xmlroff-on-ohloh/ Continue reading →]]> xmlroff is listed on Ohloh at http://www.ohloh.net/projects/xmlroff. IMO, the project cost is overstated and the user count is understated. If you are registered with Ohloh (or if you’re willing to register), consider clicking on the image below and adding xmlroff to your Ohloh stack.

]]> http://inasmuch.as/2008/07/20/xmlroff-on-ohloh/feed/ 0 xmlroff 0.6.0 http://inasmuch.as/2008/07/07/xmlroff-060/ http://inasmuch.as/2008/07/07/xmlroff-060/#comments Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:30:25 +0000 tkg http://tkg.menteith.com/2008/07/07/xmlroff-060/ Continue reading →]]> xmlroff 0.6.0 is at http://xmlroff.org/download/xmlroff-0.6.0.tar.gz.

xmlroff 0.6.0 features a BSD license without a restriction against use in a nuclear facility, an xmlroff.1 man page, and graphics rendering in the Cairo backend.

Thanks go to Jon Bosak and Mike Anastasio of Sun Microsystems for Sun’s re-release of its xmlroff source code under the no-restrictions BSD license and to lode leroy for graphics in the Cairo backend.

xmlroff is discussed on the xmlroff-list@xmlroff.org mailing list (subscription required) and on the #xmlroff channel at oftc.net.

]]> http://inasmuch.as/2008/07/07/xmlroff-060/feed/ 0 xmlroff in Ubuntu 8.04 http://inasmuch.as/2008/06/13/xmlroff-in-ubuntu-804/ http://inasmuch.as/2008/06/13/xmlroff-in-ubuntu-804/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:26:07 +0000 tkg http://tkg.menteith.com/2008/06/13/xmlroff-in-ubuntu-804/ Continue reading →]]> xmlroff is available prepackaged for Ubuntu 8.04! Instead of my reciting the list of packages that you need to build xmlroff, I just need to tell you to install it from the ‘universe’ repository using the Synaptics package manager.

Thanks must go to W. Martin Borgert and others of the Debian XML/SGML Group for doing the packaging work so that Ubuntu could pick it up as well as to the Ubuntu folks for including it.

]]> http://inasmuch.as/2008/06/13/xmlroff-in-ubuntu-804/feed/ 0 xmlroff 0.5.4 http://inasmuch.as/2008/02/12/xmlroff-054/ http://inasmuch.as/2008/02/12/xmlroff-054/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:03:02 +0000 tkg http://tkg.menteith.com/2008/02/12/xmlroff-054/ xmlroff 0.5.4 is at http://xmlroff.org/download/xmlroff-0.5.4.tar.gz.

This release fixes some table bugs and adds linefeed-treatment and white-space-collapse properties (actually added in 0.5.3, but that release was only announced on the xmlroff-list).

]]> http://inasmuch.as/2008/02/12/xmlroff-054/feed/ 0 Building xmlroff on Ubuntu 7.10 http://inasmuch.as/2008/02/11/building-xmlroff-on-ubuntu-710/ http://inasmuch.as/2008/02/11/building-xmlroff-on-ubuntu-710/#comments Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:31:45 +0000 tkg http://tkg.menteith.com/2008/02/11/building-xmlroff-on-ubuntu-710/ Continue reading →]]> Building xmlroff on Ubuntu 7.10 is straightforward once you install some build tools and the required ‘-dev’ packages.

Starting with a clean installed system, install the following packages (and their dependencies):

  • libtool
  • autoconf
  • automake1.9
  • libglib2.0-dev
  • libxslt1-dev
  • libcairo2-dev and/or libgnomeprint2.2-dev
  • libpango1.0-dev
  • libgtk2.0-dev (not libgdk-pixbuf-dev)
]]> http://inasmuch.as/2008/02/11/building-xmlroff-on-ubuntu-710/feed/ 0 The curse of a good bug reporting system http://inasmuch.as/2007/07/23/the-curse-of-a-good-bug-reporting-system/ http://inasmuch.as/2007/07/23/the-curse-of-a-good-bug-reporting-system/#comments Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:48:52 +0000 tkg http://tkg.menteith.com/2007/07/23/the-curse-of-a-good-bug-reporting-system/ Continue reading →]]> A good bug reporting system, by being good, can make a project look bad.

In five-or-so years on SourceForge, xmlroff garnered 24 bug reports. In the couple of months since moving everything to xmlroff.org, xmlroff has already amassed over 60 Trac tickets.

It may look as if xmlroff is suddenly much buggier, but it’s due to finally having a bug reporting system that’s easy to use.

Because it’s easier to use, we use it more. There’s been tickets for moving to xmlroff.org and for pie-in-the-sky ideas like a Texinfo-XML-to-FO stylesheet as well as for common or garden bugs. Since it’s also easy to link to bug reports, there’s now more ticket numbers in the notes on test results and in commit messages.

The proliferating tickets and ticket references point to quality improving, not worsening. After all, we’ve also closed more tickets than xmlroff had bug reports while on SourceForge.

]]> http://inasmuch.as/2007/07/23/the-curse-of-a-good-bug-reporting-system/feed/ 0