Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: HTML Help (htmlhelp.xsl) topic ids

[Jirka Kosek <jirka at kosek dot cz>]

"Bradford, Denis" wrote:

> htmlhelp.dsl's chunking algorithm generates HTML files using names based on
> the node number in some tree. From the point of view of creating context
> help, the names may as well be random: one day a topic is named c25.html,
> and the next time I do a transform, the same topic is c19.html.
> 
> Maybe this doesn't matter if you want to use HTML Help as a standalone
> browser. But it seems an impediment to using it for application help. In
> order for us to maintain links from an application to specific help topics,
> I think the generated files names need to be keyed to something meaningful,
> or at least predictable  - say, an id attribute or an external data file.
> 
> Is the solution a style sheet customization, as you say? Either way, I don't
> know from dsssl (still trying to get htmlhelp.xsl working), so any light on
> the subject would be most welcome. Worst case, I know you're looking at
> DocBook's use for online applications, maybe this is an RFE worth looking
> at.

If you wan to get reasonable filenames of HTML chunks using XSL HTML
Help stylesheet you can do it two ways:

1. Add special processing instruction right after each start tag which
should produce chunk with some specific name:

  <chapter>
  <?dbhtml filename="installation.html"?>
  <title>Installation</title>
  ...
  </chapter>

2. Add filenames as IDs to your document and then call stylesheet with
parameter use.id.as.filename=1:

  <chapter id="installation">
  <title>Installation</title>
  ...
  </chapter>

  saxon document.xml .../path/to/htmlhelp/htmlhelp.xsl
"use.id.as.filename=1"  

-----------------------------------------------------------------
  Jirka Kosek  	                     
  e-mail: jirka@kosek.cz
  http://www.kosek.cz