RE: [docbook-apps] Customizing applethelp.xsl: A few questions

["Billard, Trish" <trish dot billard at hp dot com>]

Hi David,

  I haven't worked with applethelp.xsl, but it does import the other docbook.xsl stylesheets, so at least some of the things you want to do are easy:
 2.  Control when new HTML files are created:  This can be done by setting parameters in your customization layer:  
<!-- Create chunks at the sect2 level -->
<xsl:param name="using.chunker">1</xsl:param>
<xsl:param name="chunk.section.depth">2</xsl:param>

<!-- Chunks the 1st sections as well as the others.  -->
<xsl:param name="chunk.first.sections">1</xsl:param>
(For more information about customization layers, parameters, and customizing the docbook xsl stylesheets in general, See Bob Stayton's "Docbook XSL: The Definitive Guide" at http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html.)

3.  Buttons for navigation:  The stylesheets can do these for the HTML pages, but I don't know how to make them show up in the help pages.  Maybe someone else can help you with that. It might be as simple as changing the parameter for suppress.footer.navigation from 0 to 1. 
    For the HTML pages, here's an example.  In this, my next, prev, up, and home are .gif files.  The stylesheets expect them to be named: next.gif, prev.gif, up.gif, and home.gif.  The html output will be coded such that it will look for these graphics in the place specified by navig.graphics.path: In this case, I put them in a folder called "stdimages," which will be in the base directory of the output.  It's up to me to copy that folder and graphics to that base directory.

<!-- Replace text with graphics for next, previous, up, and home -->
<xsl:param name="navig.graphics" select="1"/>
<xsl:param name="navig.graphics.extension" select="'.gif'"/>
<xsl:param name="navig.graphics.path">stdimages/</xsl:param>
<xsl:param name="navig.showtitles" select="1"/>

I hope this helps!

--Trish

Trish Billard
trish.billard@hp.com
(408) 285-5462



-----Original Message-----
From: David Shevitz [mailto:dshevitz@singlestep.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 7:35 AM
To: docbook-apps
Subject: [docbook-apps] Customizing applethelp.xsl: A few questions


Hello all,

I have recently gotten my process for converting my DocBook XML files 
into Web-based help working, using the applethelp.xsl stylesheet. The 
output is good, but there are some customizations I would like to make. 
Since I'm relatively new to DocBook, XML, and all this stuff, I thought 
I'd post what I'm think of doing and see if I'm either: (1) asking too 
much, or (2) asking to do stuff that is quite difficult to do.

Here are the customizations I'm thinking about:

1. Control the names of the HTML files that are created. Ideally, I'd 
like them to have the same name as the top-level heading in the file. 
For example, if the highest level headnig is "Section 1," I'd like the 
filename to be Section 1.html. (Hm. Would the space prove problematic?)

2. Control when new HTML files are created. For example, I'd like to 
create new HTML pages for both Section 1 headings and Section 2 
headings. (Right now, it appears it creates a new page for every Section 
1 heading only).

3. Create buttons that lead users to the home page, as well as allow 
them to navigate either to the previous page or the next page. If #2 is 
not feasible, these buttons might have to be in a separate frame, so 
they remain visible to the user... or perhaps they could just be added 
above each heading somehow...

Anyway, I didn't want to spend hours/days trying to get these 
customizations in place without first checking to see if they were even 
possible. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks,

Dave Shevitz
Lead Technical Writer
Singlestep Technologies
http://www.singlestep.com

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