Revision of Plans for the DITA Open Toolkit PDF2 Plug-in from Thu, 2009-01-15 18:38

We are in the process of reviewing the bugs, patches and feature requests listed on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=132728) in order to integrate them into this document. We will prioritize the list below in a later version of this document. We welcome all feedback including suggestions for new features, existing bugs, and comments about prioritization of the items below.

One of our primary goals is to incorporate the plug-in into the core Toolkit functionality and to make the plug-in architecture more consistent with the rest of the Toolkit.

Items available for next release of plug-in: Version 1.5, Milestone 10
  • Implement print=no 
  • By default, plug-in can be located either in the demo directory or in the plugins directory 
  • Fixed bugs in demo/fo/build.xml
    • Relative paths in dita.temp.dir are now supported
    • The user's classpath is now properly referenced - the plug-in will now find Saxon even if it is not in dita-ot/demo/fo/saxon.jar
  • Improved ditaot/demo/fo/xsl/common/attr-set-reflection.xsl
    • Hardcoded paths are no longer required for built-in attribute sets
    • All functionality of standard attribute sets is now supported, including XSL code within an attribute set
  • Created new file called demo/fo/cfg/fo/attrs/basic-settings.xsl which allows the user to easily change basic document settings such as font-size, page-size, and margins
  • Changed demo/fo/cfg/fo/layout-masters.xml to layout-masters.xsl
    • Layout-masters.xml has been retained for backwards compatibility
    • Making layout-masters into an XSL file enables the usage of variables for information such as page size
  • Supported later versions of DITA by checking if the version is 1.1 or 1.2
  • Resolved Bug: 1733878 Idiom plugin requires units to be specified for SVG images by commenting out problematic code in commons.xsl
  • **Transtypes for PDF processing have been changed within the DITA-OT**
    • PDF transtype now references FO plug-in code
    • PDF2 transtype still references FO plug-in code but is now deprecated
    • legacypdf transtype references old PDF processing code that was included with the toolkit
    • A notice in the processing output reminds the user that the PDF transtype is now calling the FO plug-in code
New items for consideration
  • Improve glossary support
    • Grouping of glossary topics
    • Sorting of glossary topics
  • Incorporate support for Antenna House and FOP
    • Change RenderX specific code to generic XSL-FO code
    • Incorporate Antenna House processing option into build.xml
  • Support xml:lang attribute
    • Single language in a document
    • Multiple languages in a document
    • Enable user to specify default font based on value of xml:lang attribute
  • Improve ID generation
  • Implement unsupported features
    • args.draft
    • flagging based on ditavals
    • toc=no
    • char attribute of an entry element
    • copy-to attribute on related links
  • Improved reltable support
  • Table borders
    • Retain border conditionality by default for tables that break across pages
    • Ensure that the border lines are complete when the table includes merged cells
    • Ensure that cell content is displayed when char attribute is used
  • Chunking issues
  • Improve customization process
    • Reference customized index files from build.xml
    • Allow customization of a base class which doesn’t override a class specialized from that base class
    • Improve customization process for small changes
    • Remove hardcoded links to out of the box style sheets
    • Improve attribute set reflection calls
  • Improve built-in formatting
    • Add labels for prerequisites and post-requisites
    • Move notices to before the TOC
    • Improve chapter numbering
    • Improve spacing
    • Provide default header and footer
  • Improve handling of index terms
    • Use hanging indent on index entries that wrap
    • Put “See” and “See also” in italics in see and see also references
  • Improve handling for EPS graphics
  • FOP specific issues
    • Index does not generate
    • Improve table layout for basic table
  • Improve internationalization post-process
    • Add locale parameter to make fonts locale specific
    • Expand override size functionality
    • Provide documentation of the font post-processing functionality
  • Display short description in first topic of each chapter in a bookmap
DITA 1.2 Support
  • New elements
    • Text element
    • Navtitle element for topicref
    • Bodydiv
    • Sectiondiv
    • New task type
      • Support new elements in tasks
      • Add titles for each task section
  • Existing elements in new places
    • draft-comment
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