Re: [xmlroff] FO and Area Tree browser proposal

[Charles B. <cbo...@hi...>]

I think this is an excellent idea especially your idea of seeing the
formated output in one pane and the FO and properties in another. I am
discovering that it is difficult to determine if a fo has been rendered
correctly; even a small fo has a lot of complexities. I also like the
idea of having loadable modules to work at different stages of
formatting. I can image not only being able to choose different output
formats but also having a choice different algorithms during the
adjustment phase.

I've never worked on a GUI application before and I image this one is
not too easy, but I'll bet it will pay off in the long run.

On Thu, 2003-03-06 at 07:00, Tony Graham wrote:
> Posted here and on the xmlroff Wiki to see which one generates the
> most responses.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Tony Graham
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> XML Technology Center - Dublin
> Sun Microsystems Ireland Ltd                       Phone: +353 1 8199708
> Hamilton House, East Point Business Park, Dublin 3            x(70)19708
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> FO and Area Tree Browser
> 
> The xmlroff design calls for an 'Area Tree Adjust' stage after the
> initial formatting is done and before the area tree is written out as
> PDF, etc.
> 
> The intent is to call loadable modules to do the work.
> 
> An idea for an initial loadable module that doesn't actually adjust
> the area tree is to make a graphical browser that shows the FO and
> area trees.
> 
> The browser would be:
> 
> *proof-of-concept for the loadable module technique
> *useful visualisation tool for XSL
> *useful debugging aid
> *basis for eventual manual area-tree-tweaker
> 
> The current idea is a multi-pane or multi-window browser showing:
> 
> *FO tree
> *Properties of currently selected FO
> *Areas generated by currently selected FO
> *Area tree with currently selected area highlighted
> *Properties of currently selected area
> 
> In principle this could be extended to include panes or windows for:
> 
> *Formatted output with currently selected area highlighted
> *Input XML document(s) with element or attribute that generated
> currently selected FO highlighted
> 
> (All of which would really fuel the market for multi-head displays.)
> 
> GNOME or GTK+ would be the obvious choice for windowing toolkit, but
> it could instead be done in Tk or any of a number of other
> technologies.
> 
> 
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-- 
Charles Bozeman <cbo...@hi...>