RE: [boost] Re: Re: Javascript Tree Control [was: Serialization Menu]

From: Reece Dunn (msclrhd_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-07-31 04:07:59

Jonathan Turkanis wrote:
>"Rene Rivera" <grafik.list_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
>news:410B0839.1030106_at_redshift-software.com...
> > Jonathan Turkanis wrote:
>
> > > I'd love synchronization to be automatic but I just don't see how
> > > to do it.
> >
> > It's possible but only if you invert the relation between the frames and
> > the documents. If instead of making a frameset with the tree and the
> > document you could instead make the document inline the tree frame
> > inside the document page and hence the URL would always be direct
> > (using iframe tag). This might be contrary to one of the intrusion
> > principles, but it would solve the problem.
>
>I've thought a bit more about this, and it occured to me that if the
>tree is displayed in the same frame as the content, it's state will
>not be preserved when a link is followed unless this info is added to
>the url. So it appears this idea suffers from the same problems as
>Reece's suggestion.

The question here is: are we going to place the emphasis on auto-generated 
docs? If we do this, then it should be possible to do something like:

   <span onclick = "follow_link(1.5)">Chapter 1.5</span>

With regards to the page refreshing, this happens when you select "sync" 
anyway. Is it possible to use '#' instead of '?', so the browsers won't 
refresh the docs. This might require a standard naming scheme for <a name = 
"..."/> marked sections, but this would be easier to do if the docs are 
auto-generated.

For older docs that want to keep their HTML structure but move over to the 
treeview control, it should be easy to do if:
1.  They are compatible with XHTML (i.e. they can be loaded in an XML client 
and manipulated via an XSLT stylesheet, e.g. using xsltproc). NOTE: This 
should be trivial if the HTML has been run through htmltidy.
2.  The section format follows a regular pattern, e.g. h1 elements for level 
1, h2 for level 2, etc.

This would allow you to:
1.  Insert and generate the treeview control by making a pass over the hN 
tags.
2.  Clean up sections of the form: <a name = "..."/><hN>...</hN>

Issues would be:
1.  Do we remove the ToC provided in the HTML doc (can we detect and 
remove/use it?)
2.  Have we detected the document structure correctly?
3.  Other issues I've missed.

Regards,
Reece Dunn

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