Re: [xsl] Obscuring static content with flow

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2006-03-10 14:00 -0800, Evan Lenz wrote:
> Is there a way to obscure static content using flow content?
>
> I have a 2-column layout with a rotated (vertical) rule leader 
> dividing the two columns of flow. The leader is defined in a 
> block-container in static content.

I've learned that the spec does not specify the z-index of the 
regions of the page, which means that you cannot rely that 
overwriting one region with another region is going to work.

This is important to me in my UBL stylesheets, so to accommodate 
this, I've had to ensure transparent backgrounds in case the static 
area for a particular implementation has a higher z-index than the body area.

This is important to your situation in that any solution has to 
happen in a single region and not two regions.

> My problem is that there are some blocks in the flow that need to 
> span both columns (using <block span="all">). In that case, I don't 
> want that vertical rule to be displayed, since it cuts straight 
> through the content. Is there a way to hide it or "cover up" a 
> portion of the rule using content from the flow?

If you could change your vertical rule to be a background graphic 
(remember you can repeat a small vertical bar with 
background-repeat="repeat-y" ... if you have my XSL-FO book an 
illustration is on page 288 of the Fifth Edition), then you could use 
background="white" on your spanned text in your region which is 
guaranteed to have a higher z-index than the background of that same 
region (but not of other regions).

> I've tried using an all-white image to cover up the static content, 
> but that didn't seem to work. Either it's fundamentally impossible, 
> or I'm missing something fundamental. (I hope it's the latter!)

It looks like the implementation of XSL-FO you are using uses a 
higher z-index for perimeter regions than for body regions.

I had hoped the ability to specify z-index for regions would have 
been added to XSL-FO 1.1 in order to do more effects in UBL, but the 
answer back from the committee was "no".

I hope this helps, Evan.

. . . . . . . . . . . . Ken


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