RE: About columns?

["Didier PH Martin" <martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,


> Didier said:
> ------------------------------------------------------
> I know that. This is the RTF backend. I am interested, however, to listen
to
> how people created multi column layouts, up to where they could do it.
What
> they wanted to do but couldn't do it because of the implementation
> limitations. Also, interested about tricks people found to reach their
goal
> (i.e. creating a multi-column layout). Did someone found a trick to do an
> asymmetric multi column layout? (Ex: in a two column layout, a column
bigger
> than the other)
>

Matthias said:
-------------------------------------------------------
The trick here would be to implement page-sequence and column-set-sequence.
Unfortunately, nobody found it yet...

Didier says:
-------------------------------------------------------
OK, let's get to the point. Who wanted to create an asymmetric multi-column
layout and what did you do to resolve the problem? I am not talking about
implementing what is not there in OpenJade, off course (so Matthias, please
let the others give the answer - I just want to listen to people who have
problems (needs) without adequate solution in OpenJade and how people
resolved them - not a course on what is or what is not there - I am fully
aware of that, thank you :-)

When I checked the code (primitive.h), it reminded me of this missing
features. As Tony said, the DSSSL-O version do not require an implementation
to support this kind of feature. DSSSL-O is well documented in a Jon Bosak
document (I have the document but do not remember where it come from -
probably from Jon). Jade is a strange beast because the DSSSL-O feature set
is somewhat present but incomplete (the DSSSL-0 feature set included the
scroll object - see below for a document extract). Thus, for instance,
the -t html backend contains the scroll object but not the table object, and
so on. It is not all browsers that can embed a rtf or a mif rendition engine
and thus the simple-page-sequence cannot be easily rendered except with
Hybrick - and the list go on, and on...). So Tony reminded us that Jade was
mainly limited to DSSSL-O objects ( a subset of the full DSSSL
specification). I anyone wants to read the document, I'll ask Jon if he can
post it on his new space.

Toby said that he used the page-n-columns characteristic implemented in both
the rtf and mif back ends (did you know that the mif backend also support
this characteristic? I am testing each object characteristic by
characteristic and yes it works for both mif and rtf - I didn't checked yet
for Tex). Toby also said that he never needed an asymmetric columns layout.
It seems (or I perceived) that Toby's needs where satisfied with a symmetric
column layout.

After this wrap up, does anybody in this list already wanted to create an
output with asymmetric column layout? If yes, how did you resolved the
problem (with which tool?).

extract from Jon Bosak document about DSSSL-0
-------------------------------------------------------
This section summarizes the features and flow object classes that must be
supported by a minimally conformant DSSSL Online application. Note that the
appearance of a flow object class in this section does not imply that the
minimal dsssl-o application supports all standard values of all
characteristics associated with each flow object class; the extent of this
support is detailed in the tables that appear later. The section numbers
refer to sections in the DSSSL standard.

Core DSSSL components
The following items are mandatory in the DSSSL standard and therefore in
DSSSL Online.

Core query language, core expression language

Basic flow object classes
12.6.1 Sequence
12.6.2 Display group
12.6.6 Paragraph
12.6.7 Paragraph break
12.6.8 Line field
12.6.9 Sideline
12.6.11 Character
12.6.12 Leader
12.6.14 Rule
12.6.15 External graphic
12.6.17 Score
12.6.18 Box
12.6.22 Alignment point
12.6.23 Aligned column


DSSSL options required in DSSSL Online
The following flow object classes and features are optional in the full
DSSSL Standard but are required in DSSSL Online.

Features: table, table-auto-width, online, simple-page, alignment, keyword

Syntactic keywords: lambda, #!key, letrec, let*, let (including named let)


Simple page flow object class
12.6.3 Simple page sequence



Table flow object classes
12.6.27.1 Table
12.6.27.2 Table part
12.6.27.3 Table column
12.6.27.5 Table row
12.6.27.6 Table cell
12.6.27.7 Table border



Online display flow object classes
12.6.28.1 Scroll
12.6.28.2 Multi-mode
12.6.28.3 Link
12.6.28.4 Marginalia




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