[Refdb-users] User feedback 4

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

Hi again,

David Nebauer writes:
 > [...continued]
 > 
 > 8.  In multiple citations html output contains a single hyperlink to the 
 > first reference.  I seem to recall reading about this in a previous 
 > thread on refdb-users.  IIRC, you said it was non-trivial to correct and 
 > (?) you were not planning to do anything about it in a hurry.  It's not 
 > a major issue for me but I include it in my list.
 > 

I'm still not planning to play with this. If the bibliofile approach
matures, there may be a more elegant solution available for this problem.

 > 9.  make clean doesn't remove .aux or .fo files.
 > 

I've fixed this in CVS.

 > 10. May I suggest adding support for the Apache FO processor: FOP.  I 
 > find its output much cleaner than pdfxmltex.  Some of the problems with 
 > the pdfxmltex output of my text document are:
 > - header (document title) is only two words, but is split across two lines
 > - header and footer separation lines only cross left half of page
 > - revision history output squeezed to left side of page
 > - table of contents header starts _inside_ left margin while other 
 > headers start _at_ left margin
 > - inclusion of "rubbish" text at top left of each output page: - -4pc - -4pc
 > - tables have no vertical or horizontal lines
 > - page numbers not horizontally centred

Now that you mention it, I recall I've seen all these symptoms on
XP/Cygwin, the only platform that gave me printable, albeit broken XML
output.

 > I mention this not because I expect you to correct the deficiencies of 
 > pdfxmltex, but as a reason to support FOP.  In my test document, FOP 
 > outputted pdf with none of the above-mentioned flaws.  In fact, it's 
 > output was indistinguishable from that of RenderX's (commercially 
 > available) xep processor.  In addition, on my machine at least, FOP is 
 > faster than pdfxmltex.
 > 
 > It is easy, of course, to use the .fo file from the make process as 
 > input for FOP, but it would be nice to add the option to refdb and 
 > automate the process.
 > 

The reason why FOP is not included is historic. Last time I checked
(this must be more than a year ago) FOP was in such a broken state
that it seemed useless compared to passivetex (which happened to work
back then on my then-Debian-2.x installation). I've never bothered to
check since, but if it works ok now I'll be happy to include it.

 > 11. I have an XSL customisation layer for Norm Walsh's stylesheets.  
 > With standard docbook it is trivial to use a customisation stylesheet 
 > which imports the main stylesheet and overrides the relevant 
 > parameters.  It is difficult, however, to see how this can easily be 
 > done with refdb.  The base stylesheets are created anew each time make 
 > is run.  I see that these stylesheets basically call on refdb 
 > stylesheets docbk-refdb-XX which themselves call on Norm Walsh's 
 > stylesheets.  If I were to modify the docbk-refdb-XX stylesheets (the 
 > most accessible answer for me) to override certain parameters, I would 
 > have to do the whole thing over next time I upgrade refdb.
 > 
 > I wonder whether a structural solution using refdb is possible.  Perhaps 
 > a build-time configure option to point to fo|html|xhtml customisation 
 > stylesheets which can then be included in the makefile generated 
 > stylesheets.
 > 

I haven't tried this yet, but why don't you try and point configure
--with--docbook-xsl to your customization layer instead of to the
official stylesheets? This requires a file "VERSION" in your stylesheet
directory to make the configure test happy. It should work ok
otherwise if your stylesheets are arranged in the same directory
structure as the official stylesheets.

 > 12.  Finally, I come to the questions asked by everybody who reaches the 
 > point of having a fully functional refdb system -- where are the 
 > styles?!  I have read the refdb-user archives and know your standard 
 > response -- go forth and modify existing ones/write your own.  I respect 
 > that and intend to begin the long journey to XSL mastery.  Can you, 
 > however,  point to any current efforts under way to modify/create refdb 
 > styles that I can plagiarise/piggyback on/learn from?
 > 

/usr/local/share/refdb/styles? Not that many to learn from, but it's a
start...

 > 
 > That's all the feedback I have for now, except to repeat again how 
 > impressed I am with refdb.  For want of a better word, it is an ... 
 > elegant ... solution to a bibliographic problem.
 > 

I guess Homer would say: "sweet"!

Thanks for your input.

Markus


-- 
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de