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What should a <sidebar> look like?
- From: Jason Foster <jafoster at uwaterloo dot ca>
- To: docbook at lists dot oasis-open dot org
- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 15:28:15 -0500
- Subject: DOCBOOK: What should a <sidebar> look like?
I've been asked to convert an existing textbook to DocBook for publishing
in a variety of media. The authors of the textbook tried to do students a
favour by including summary notes in the margins throughout the book. An
example, if you're viewing this is a fixed-width font, is as follows:
> This is a paragraph of important text. In
> this paragraph we give an example of how This paragraph is an
> example.
> including summary notes in the text margins
> can significantly enhance student enjoyment.
> Students are happier when they don't have Students like this
> approach.
> to make their own summary notes. Blah, blah,
> blah...
I had this crazy idea that the <sidebar> element would be appropriate. It'
s not perfect, as I don't think a <sidebar> can be a child of a <para>
which means my sidebars will always line up with the top of a paragraph,
but it's pretty close. A fragment of my markup follows:
> <section>
> <title>
> A First Section
> </title>
> <para>
> Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative
> text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text.
> Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text.
> </para>
> <sidebar>
> <title>
> A Sidebar
> </title>
> <para>
> Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content.
> Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content.
> Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content.
> Sidebar content.
> </para>
> </sidebar>
> <para>
> The continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing
> flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text.
> The continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the
> narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. The
> continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the
> narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. The
> continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the
> narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. The
> continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the
> narrative text.
> </para>
> </section>
When I ran this through the XSL:FO stylesheets in the docbook-xsl-1.45
distribution (as the CVS stylesheets appear to require more than my naive
knowledge to function) the result was something close to:
> Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some
> narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text.
>
> Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content.
> Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content.
> Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content.
>
> The continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the
> narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. The
> continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the
> narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text.
The sidebar content appeared to simply be embedded in the flow of the
document.
Has anyone managed to achieve the effect I am looking for using the stock
DocBook DTDs and stylesheets?
Thanks for your help!
Jason Foster