I really don't understand what this "GUI" is asking me for when I go to generate FO or PDF output. I have Apache FOP, I have Saxon, I have all the tools required to generate FO and PDF output and can generate PDF output files manually.
For some reason I can't seem to feed the right command into FOA to get it to do anything useful.
While it looks like this project could be very useful, the documentation is a bit scant. If anyone can point me toward a good example that goes beyond building bricks and attributes and actually into generating FO and PDF it would be a real time saver.
The file dialogs are a little less than helpful. I don't really understand what it's trying to save as a "makefile" or what extension it expects a makefile to have, but it happily stomped on my xml input file when I accidentally chose that as the place to save my "makefile."
I can see the need for some more thorough how-to's and walkthroughs. I will happily write one or two if someone can help nudge me over this hump.
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The short answer seems to be that there's really no point in trying to have FOA do the generation for you... all you can really do is feed it batch files. I can get to the command line and run batch files a lot quicker than I can make FOA happy with my input choices. It will generate my FO file with the batch I built, but it doesn't recognize the FO file and offer the option to generate the PDF. I don't know why and really don't care... I'll just go run the whole batch from the command line and just use FOA to build the input files.
I don't know if development has halted on this or not, but if I'm going to use it I might be inclined to tighten it up here and there (although it's been a while since I've done any serious Java coding). Do you need anyone else on the team? How would I contribute if I manage to fix any bugs?
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All right, I took another run at it and got it to work end to end. There is a bug in the attribute set manager that will allow you to create an attribute set with an invalid QNAME. I manually fixed a couple in my old project, but I guess something was buried where I couldn't see it. I started the project from scratch and used valid QNAME's *everywhere*.
I was able to render the fo and have FOA see that it was there and then offer to let me render the PDF.
I guess I'll go try something more complex now.
Is than an echo I hear?
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I really don't understand what this "GUI" is asking me for when I go to generate FO or PDF output. I have Apache FOP, I have Saxon, I have all the tools required to generate FO and PDF output and can generate PDF output files manually.
For some reason I can't seem to feed the right command into FOA to get it to do anything useful.
While it looks like this project could be very useful, the documentation is a bit scant. If anyone can point me toward a good example that goes beyond building bricks and attributes and actually into generating FO and PDF it would be a real time saver.
The file dialogs are a little less than helpful. I don't really understand what it's trying to save as a "makefile" or what extension it expects a makefile to have, but it happily stomped on my xml input file when I accidentally chose that as the place to save my "makefile."
I can see the need for some more thorough how-to's and walkthroughs. I will happily write one or two if someone can help nudge me over this hump.
Okay, never mind. I've gotten it figured out.
The short answer seems to be that there's really no point in trying to have FOA do the generation for you... all you can really do is feed it batch files. I can get to the command line and run batch files a lot quicker than I can make FOA happy with my input choices. It will generate my FO file with the batch I built, but it doesn't recognize the FO file and offer the option to generate the PDF. I don't know why and really don't care... I'll just go run the whole batch from the command line and just use FOA to build the input files.
I don't know if development has halted on this or not, but if I'm going to use it I might be inclined to tighten it up here and there (although it's been a while since I've done any serious Java coding). Do you need anyone else on the team? How would I contribute if I manage to fix any bugs?
All right, I took another run at it and got it to work end to end. There is a bug in the attribute set manager that will allow you to create an attribute set with an invalid QNAME. I manually fixed a couple in my old project, but I guess something was buried where I couldn't see it. I started the project from scratch and used valid QNAME's *everywhere*.
I was able to render the fo and have FOA see that it was there and then offer to let me render the PDF.
I guess I'll go try something more complex now.
Is than an echo I hear?