Re: bug reports and patches for Norman's modular stylesheets

Subject: Re: bug reports and patches for Norman's modular stylesheets
From: Norman Walsh <ndw@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 06:07:46 -0400
| * API descriptions are flat and not visually very useful.  I have a
|   patch for that which tries to make <funcsynopsis> look like
|   TeXinfo's, but it could look even better.  (Eventually I want to

(I've peeked at your patches before replying.)  What you're
proposing is interesting.  I guess there are two schools of
thought on this.  One is that funcysnopsis out to look like a
literal piece of code, the other that it ought to be decorated
for readability.

I've always fallen in the former camp, but that may be mostly
because I was focusing on the task of getting all the gentext
right.

For folks who haven't seen the patches; what Mark is proposing
is that different elements of the funcsynopsis (function,
parameters, etc.) get different typographical treatment.

Straw poll, does this sound like a good thing to you?

| * Multiple subtitles: nsgmls validates the use of multiple subtitles,
|   so I guess they're OK :-).  But they were not handled well in the
|   HTML DSSSL.  I have put in a patch that creates separate <H2> tags
|   for separate subtitles.

A lot of the meta-information in DocBook is just a "bag of tags"
in a repeatable OR group.  You can have multiple titles, too.
In 1.08b-something, I made multiple subtitles appear separated
by semicolons.

| * TITLEABBREV should not really appear in the title page.  I think it
|   should only appear (to the exclusion of the TITLE) in page headers
|   and footers (in print), and possibly next to navigation links (in
|   HTML).  My patch simply takes it out of the title pages :-)

Ack.  I didn't know it showed up there ;-)

| * Feature request: a configuration option to put numbers in all levels
|   of sectioning.  I think that's really important: it's nice to give
|   proofreaders a version with each <sect?> numbered.

>From dbparam.dsl:

(define %section-autolabel%
  ;; REFENTRY
  ;; PURP Are sections enumerated?
  ;; DESC
  ;; If true, unlabeled sections will be enumerated.
  ;; /DESC
  ;; AUTHOR N/A
  ;; /REFENTRY
  #f)

See http://nwalsh.com/docbook/dsssl/htparam.html ;-)  (Although I just
noticed that in a recent incarnation the refpurposes got dropped from
that page.  It's a bug.)

| * Feature request (HTML only): a configuration variable with the name
|   of a cascading style sheet file (.css).  I think this would be a
|   clean way of incorporating CSSs.

>From dbhtml.dsl, but only in db108b6+, 

(define ($html-header-tags$) 
  ;; Add any additional tags for the header here (obvious candidates
  ;; are LINK, SCRIPT, and STYLE
  (make sequence
;    (make element gi: "LINK"
;	  attributes: '(("REL" "EXAMPLE")
;			("HREF" "http://www.nowhere.com/";)))
    (empty-sosofo)))


I guess maybe a STYLE element is special enough to warrant its
own configuration option, but my intent was that local
extensions would override $html-header-tags$ and output whatever
was desired.

| * Feature request: the revision history can be both useful and really
|   annoying.  I think it should be configurable.  In print (I suggest)
|   it should just be "put it in title page" or "drop it".  In HTML (I
|   suggest) it should be "put it in title page" or "put it in separate
|   file" (I would like that one) or "drop it".

For revhistory in bookinfo, that would make sense.  What do you want to
do with revhistorys elsewhere?

--norm



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Current Thread
  • bug reports and patches for Norman's modular stylesheets
    • Mark Galassi - from mail1.ability.netby web4-1.ability.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA10482Mon, 13 Apr 1998 18:42:59 -0400 (EDT)
      • Norman Walsh - from mail1.ability.netby web4-1.ability.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA10650Mon, 13 Apr 1998 18:46:57 -0400 (EDT) <=
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          • Norman Walsh - from mail1.ability.netby web4-1.ability.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA10773Mon, 13 Apr 1998 18:48:22 -0400 (EDT)
      • Alexander Taranov - from mail1.ability.netby web4-1.ability.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA17665Tue, 14 Apr 1998 02:45:04 -0400 (EDT)
        • Norman Walsh - from mail1.ability.netby web4-1.ability.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA24610Tue, 14 Apr 1998 07:09:30 -0400 (EDT)
          • Alexander Taranov - from mail1.ability.netby web4-1.ability.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA24922Tue, 14 Apr 1998 07:19:33 -0400 (EDT)