Re: [docbook-apps] toolchain

["Paul A. Hoadley" <paulh at logicsquad dot net>]

Hello,

On Fri, Oct 08, 2004 at 08:00:28PM +0200, ibr@ata.cs.hun.edu.tr wrote:

> 1. Are there open issues with rendering? In other words, can I do
> with XSLT everything I do with DSSSL?

I suspect the answer to your second question is yes, though I haven't
used the DSSSL stylesheets in years, so I can't be definitive.

> 2. How much time would I need for learning? I'm doing this in my
> spare time. I need to customize headers, footers, page numbering,
> title wording, titlepages.

If your customisations are more than minimally complex, this will
depend on how much XSLT you know already.  Many customisations can be
achieved by redefining parameters, but if you find you need to
override entire templates to achieve what you want, you may need to
write some XSLT code.  Either way, Bob Stayton has made his definitive
reference ('DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide') available online:

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

> 3. Which toolchain (not only the ones mentioned above) produces the
> best results and is less likely to break later?

I think it remains uncontroversial to claim that the best results for
print output via XSLFO will be achieved with a commercial FO renderer.
I use and recommend XEP from RenderX (http://www.renderx.com/).  I am
sure there are perfectly acceptable free tools depending on your
requirements.

> I'll need to regenerate many files at once after a customization
> layer change, so performance is important.

I have found xsltproc to be very fast.  XEP is written in Java and is
certainly the rate-limiting step in my toolchain.


-- 
Paul.

w  http://logicsquad.net/
h  http://paul.hoadley.name/

Attachment: pgp00000.pgp
Description: PGP signature