Re: [xsl] XSL-FO: Fixed box to construct empty text-box or tick-box.

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

At 2006-03-22 17:23 +0000, Lloyd Thompson wrote:
> I am writing XSL-FO to produce a questionnaire document. For this I 
> will need to create empty text-boxes and tick-boxes.

When I've had to create quiz layouts, I've used <block-container> 
very effectively:  if the quiz had a specified distance *including* 
the question, the question is flowed inside the <block-container>, 
whereas if the quiz had a specified distance for just the answer, the 
question is flowed before the <block-container>.

Here is the test bed that I used to learn this ... these are the 
first two questions from our evaluation form for our hands-on XSL 
training ... the first has the question inside the block container, 
the second has the question before the block container:

   <list-item>
     <list-item-label text-align="end" end-indent="label-end()">
       <block>1)</block>
     </list-item-label>
     <list-item-body start-indent="body-start()">
       <block-container block-progression-dimension="2.3cm">
         <block start-indent="0pt">
        <xsl:text>Did the material cover what you were expecting?</xsl:text>
         </block>
       </block-container>
     </list-item-body>
   </list-item>
   <list-item>
     <list-item-label text-align="end" end-indent="label-end()">
       <block>2)</block>
     </list-item-label>
     <list-item-body start-indent="body-start()">
       <block space-before="inherited-property-value(font-size) * .5"
              text-align-last="justify">
         <xsl:text>Quality of the presentation slides:</xsl:text>
         <leader/>
         <xsl:text>(poor) 1 - 10 (excellent): </xsl:text>
         <leader leader-pattern="rule" leader-length="1cm"
                 rule-thickness="1pt"/>
       </block>
       <block space-before="inherited-property-value(font-size) * .5">
         <xsl:text>How might the presentation slides be improved?</xsl:text>
       </block>
       <block-container block-progression-dimension="2.0cm"
                        start-indent="0pt"
                    space-before="inherited-property-value(font-size) * .5">
         <block/>
       </block-container>
     </list-item-body>
   </list-item>

For tick-boxes, I use a bordered <inline-container>, as in the 
following also from my evaluation sheet, though this appears to only 
work in Antenna House and not in XEP or in Ibex, and I haven't 
bothered to figure out who is right and who is wrong ... it might 
only be an issue of those tools not supporting <inline-container>:

    <block space-before="inherited-property-value(font-size) * .5"
           text-align-last="justify">
      <xsl:text>Would you like to be contacted for information</xsl:text>
      <xsl:text> on future courses from either the event</xsl:text>
      <xsl:text> organizers or directly from Crane?</xsl:text>
      <leader/>
      <inline-container width="1em" height="1em"
                        alignment-adjust="text-after-edge"
                        border-style="solid" border-width="1pt">
        <block><leader/></block>
      </inline-container>
      <xsl:text> No </xsl:text>
      <inline-container width="1em" height="1em"
                        alignment-adjust="text-after-edge"
                        border-style="solid" border-width="1pt">
        <block><leader/></block>
      </inline-container>
      <xsl:text> Yes</xsl:text>
    </block>

From my understanding of XSL-FO the above should be right.

I hope this helps.

. . . . . . . . Ken

At 2006-03-22 17:23 +0000, Lloyd Thompson wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I am writing XSL-FO to produce a questionnaire document. For this I 
> will need to create empty text-boxes and tick-boxes. So far,  I have 
> managed to produce text-boxes using fo:table; the text-boxes are 
> simply cells that contain borders. The problem is that this box 
> grows as the text in another column spans over more than one line, 
> so ideally I want to place a fixed size box in the table.
>
> What is the best way to go about doing this? I tried to create an 
> empty fo:block and specified attributes for height and width but 
> unfortunatley as the box is not populated, it appears as a flat 
> line. Do I have to produce an SVG?
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Lloyd


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