Messages posted by: Victor Krapivin

We're sorry it seems is our bug.

I'll send you link for corrected version as soon as it will be reay.

We expecting it will be available tomorrow evening.

Often, we have questions like this:

I want to change XSL file in Notepad++, but let XSLfast manage it too. How to do this?

In general, XSLfast does not able to open any XSL file and open it as a layout - it only imports templates as XSL code.

Should it mean the answer is "no, it doesn't"?

Way is there, but it is based upon separation of XSL pieces: visual part and logic behind.

So, for this case your flow might be as follows:

Move all data you need to change into templates, visually.
Export XSL file from XSLfast.
Consume templates you need in text editor, and move it into different file foo.tpl.
Return back to XSLfast, and remove all visual elements you moved to external templates.
In Layout settings, add your foo.tpl file as external templates file, and save the prepared layout.

Now, the visual elements are in XSLfast, and the logic in separate file. And you can use your foo.tpl freely in text or XML editor as you need, and XSLfast still able to manage its' layouts.

This hybrid way is alone right now.

In XSLfast the page groupings are direct equivalent to for-each, so all you need - just specify filter/grouping to page using context menu, tool bar, or inspector window.

Concerning blank pages, can you explain a bit what kind of blank pages you need?

If you need such blank page, just add new page sequence, and order the right place using Layout/Combine dialog. For more complex case can you explain it a bit here, to suggest something?

Thanks.

For XEP or FOP 1.0, just follow to inspector window and choose orientation you need in `text orientation` property.

For FOP 0.20.5 thus option is not available.

All your spam with pharmacy will be deleted.

Moderator.

We're almost there; the few important bugs stops us to release.

For XEP, this functionality will be available in XSLfast 4.1.

Unfortunately, FOP have no way to let him compute table columns.

We're sorry, seems you found a bug. Can you explain a bit what you tried to do and in which version?

Thank you.

Please try using Saxon6 as front-end to FOP, as follows:

step a): use Saxon to produce XSL-FO from XML and XSL
step b) let FOP transform pure XSL-FO to PDF.

Seems in preferences you turned on option [x] Use saxon extensions, and Xalan incorporated in FOP distribution, cannot handle Saxon-specific extensions.

Usability: massive changes

First, we made really big changes in user interface.

The most important are:

new fancy skin and more classic look: tabs, refined tool bars and menus
new smart guides. Once you dragging / resizing, you see how close it to other elements, where it bordered / aligned
support of multiple monitors. Now you able to move tree / inspector / preview / page sequences navigator to 2nd monitor and leave editing place at main one
preview on the fly. You changing layout and you see (in preview window) how your layout really looks
completions in editor windows. Start typing text or XPath expression and click ctrl+space to see what's near
new layout preview: no more Acrobat Reader necessary
external tools are gone: now XSLfast able to detect everything automatically
filters / groupings are user friendly: hinting depending on attached XML file, most reasonable groupings / filters are available just from context menus
you can fill table contents from one open editor dialog, by navigating arrows at right-bottom corner
new and completely refined table wizard: much more easy
welcome Office 2007/2010 look and feel: ribbons as an alternate look

and more and more, beginning from frames' placement and ending with drag and drop from Finder/ Explorer / Dolphin.

New functions

Of course, we adding new and new features, and our integration with XEP and AHFormatter allows to use customized extensions from both products in UI. But not only this. The major new features are:

now you can use your templates as functions in your XSL code, XSLfast will wrap variables around calls automatically
side floats
massive enhancements for pivot tables
XSL-FO documents are more strict and conforms to XEP validation
links can be not only textual but images too
more IF clauses, for table columns in particular
added way to compare layout versions with user friendly difference report
added support of fo:marker
more robust support of DTD external entities and references
managed backgrounds: IF clauses even for images and colors

and more.

The public betas ain't available right now but will do soon.

1. The output files are individual to each layout, and can be changed via Layout -> Layout settings dialog.

2. In preferences dialog, please use "browse" button to locate exact EXE name. Typically, it placed at C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader folder (for Windows).

In version 4.0, the proper path is auto-detected at installation time, so usually you don't need to type anything.

In new major release XSLfast uses internal PDF viewer.

We're sorry, but XSLfast have no support of multi-volume feature of AHFormatter. We added many extensions (it available when you specify XSLFormatter option in Layout/Layout settings dialog), but not feature you mentioned. We'll add this option in next major releases.

Btw, can you resend your files to me? I've got only email without attachments.

The XSLfast is an designer tool: it produces one XSL file, and you can use many different XML files with this XSL to produce many PDF files.

The typical use case is:

1. Generate XSL file inside XSLfast (just make layout, test it, and use File->Export command to get XSL file).

Now, once you have XSL file, yoy can print may PDF files. How?

First, you need the following tools:

- Saxon
- FOP (or XEP or AHFormatter).

Every actual XML file with data needs to be processed in two steps:

a) Via Saxon, generate XSL-FO: where my.xsl.fo - file newly produced, my.xml - current XML file with data to be printed, my.xsl is XSL file from XSLfast (see step 1).
b) Render XSL-FO file from a) to PDF: where my.pdf is newly created PDF file, and my.xsl.fo is file generated by step (a).

Note: fop.xconf should be contributed from XSLfast/lib/FOP_1.0 folder, to be sure you've using the same settings for FOP as for XSLfast. Also, we recommen to start FOP from XSLfast/bin folder, to be sure all relative paths to resources are the same as for XSLfast.

Yes, it is possible.

First, you need to use either XSD / DTD, or XML file with all examples of your data. If you have only couople of XML files of similar structure, use XSLfast -> Extras -> Concatenate XML files tool, to build one big XML file from couple of small XML files.

Now, you need to attach your XSD / big XML file to XSLfast, and play with groupings.

For example, your XML looks like this:

Now you have two options:

1. Place every sequence (e.g. all `foo` and all `bar`) to separate pages, or
2. it should be placed in one flow order.

For first case, you need to define two main page sequences in XSLfast (and add regions for every page separately if needed). And you need to make proper page groupings for every page sequence, like this:

and

This trick is necessary to omit foo (bar) pages if no any foo (bar) nodes specified in real XML documents.

Once you defined groupings, you can operate with every specific XML piece as it is alone. For `foo` page you can freely define everything you need for printing `foo`. And for `bar` page you can define anything you need to print `bar` data.

In this approach you can place tables, static texts, and other content freely in the pages.

For second way, you need to define only one page sequence with grouping like

And all other elements should be managed by tables and inner tables content.

By adding two tables (and table groupings `foo` and `bar` respectively), you can define `foo` elements to be printed prior to `bar` elements (if exists) (or in other order), but all elements not tables either should be printed always, or should be limited to XSL-IF clauses, to define in which case it should be printed.

In this way, you'll have 5 possible cases: always shown, no foo and bar defined in XML (count(foo) + count(bar) = 0), defined foo but not bar (count(foo) > 0 and count(bar) = 0), defined bar and not foo (count(bar) > 0 and count(foo) = 0), and defined both (count(foo) > 0 and count(bar) > 0).

As you see, the second way is much more complex and have a lot of limitations, like you can't define different regions for `foo` and `bar`, as you have only one page sequence. But it have few real benefits, that might be important for you.

1. If both `foo` and `bar` defined, it will be followed without page break between them.
2. Page columns can be used for arranging `foo` and `bar` as it might be available at one PDF page.

Sorry, I'm unsure i understand the exact roots of the problem you reported.

Let me explain a bit how XSLast works, during generating preview.

First, XSLfast checks if specified file name is being used: it tries to delete old PDF file. If deletion is failed, it seems it being used by other process, and XSLfast tries to make file <name>-1.PDF, <name>-2.PDF, and so on, unless it finds unused name. Once PDF name is determined, it calls AHFormatter, as described:

and waits until AHFormatter finished. If any warnings processed by AHFormatter, it collected into xslfast.log file for further reading. Once PDF is created, and preview requested, XSLfast launches Acrobat Reader (or any other PDF viewer you chosen), with PDF name specified for AHFormatter.

The same approach is applied to XEP and FOP, with only difference to methods of spawning FOP/XEP and passing parameters to it.

So, all you need - just check option at Layout->Layout settings dialog.

At practice, we know one issue. If such file named Demo.pdf is opened by Adobe Acrobat Reader, the adobe reader will decline any other attempts to open the same file for viewing again. The only one solution is close acrobat reader and try again.

The all steps related to preview and PDF generation, is added to xslfast.log file, so can you send this file to us?

Thank you.