Re: [Boost-users] Why is there so muchco-dependencyinBoost?Is there anything to be done about it?

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Why is there so muchco-dependencyinBoost?Is there anything to be done about it?
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-09-06 13:53:56

John Maddock wrote:
>>> Of these things, the "expand-all" and bigger twiddle targets would
>>> likely be among the easier, while the other two would require a lot
>>> more work.
>>
>> These are in fact not too hard.  I'll consider it.
>>
>> It turns out that I've been sucked in to spending time learning about
>> XSLT, XML editors, DocBooK, BoostBook. etc.  So I've
>> considered re-formating the serialization documentation in terms
>> of BoostBook which would address all he the  above and give
>> the serialization library documentation a more up date look
>> compatible with the other boost libraries.
>>
>> BUT - I would lose the navigator - which I'm actually in love with.
>>
>> What I would really like is an XSLT script which would build
>> a free-floating BoostBook Navigator which would navigate
>> all the boost book docs. Of course it's usage would be optional.
>
> Nice idea.  Robert: the HTML in your navigator pane looks rather
> similar to the HTML in generated for the Boostbook TOC page, could
> your scripts be injected in without too much change?  If so we would
> just need to tweak HTML generation to produce an extra TOC page along
> with the frames etc?

What is the "Boostbook TOC page"? is that the TOC for each library?

In any case what is needed is an XSLT script which would process
all the BoostBook files and result in an HTML file which would
contain the navigator.  This Navigator would include some boilerplate
javascript.  Note that IO streams has a different (probably slicker)
implication of the navigator javascript.

a) It makes the navigator separate from the pages and doesn't
occupy any significant storage.
b) It's usage would be optional.
c) It preserves theURL of the origninal pages
d) It's cross platform
e) It lets us add a couple of cool simple features like opening
pages in other tabs.

I'm currently bogged down in trying to implement my boost
candidate/incubator concept I proosed at boost con a
couple of years ago.  I is in the course of this that I've become
familiar with the pros/cons of docbook/boostbook.

> BTW I really don't like those tiny graphics either.

Halleluhuh - at last something easy to fix!!!

> Also just noted that docbook can output web help, which looks rather
> nice:
> http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/webhelp/docs/content/ch01.html
> but appears to require Java client side?

Hmm - worthy of investigation.  Any such Navigator is goint to require 
Javascript.
I don't see this is a downside.

a) Javascript is pretty ubiquitous
b) The usage of the "navigator" is optional
c) It doesn't take away anything we already have.

My little experience with XSLT and DocBook suggests that, like everything
else, there's more to it than meets the eye.  But only trying it can we
know.

Robert Ramey