[FM Discuss] multi-column formatting

[Martin Kean]

Hi,

Reading about your uphill php work has prompted me to ask a question that relates to multi-column formatting for the large format size in Objavi:

When you talk about 'templated html versions of booki books' I understand it to mean 'the book's content, text and images, and TOC, formatted into html from an existing html template'.
I guess the form of the book before this is database records. I am wondering about which html tags are used for what content, and the css required for evenly spaced multi-columns, which I have so far never succeeded in creating for the large format size. So how would I find the html template used to structure the book?

thanks, Martin
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From: discuss-bounces at lists.flossmanuals.net [discuss-bounces at lists.flossmanuals.net] On Behalf Of adam hyde [adam at flossmanuals.net]
Sent: Friday, 14 May 2010 11:48 p.m.
To: fm
Subject: [FM Discuss] php challenge... Plugins

hi

so...recently I've been working on the new scripts for publishing
content created in Booki.

Its pretty basic and based on an idea of Dougs to have a script that can
fetch templated html content from Booki for storing on a local server.
In this way Booki and Objavi dont store/host published content but
instead books (talking about templated html versions of booki books) are
published under any domain you want...

So, after some pondering and discussions with Aco (Doug is away on
holidays at the moment) the idea has grown from a 'book fetching' script
to a script that can manage everything we do now at FM...'publishing'
static html, linking to epubs and pdf in the html, listing books per
category, remixing, blogging...

im writing it in php with (if possible) no additional libs and no
database. I want to make it as simple to install and use as possible. So
far I have stage one working which is the basic script that fetches a
book from Booki )actually it gets it from Objavi, wraps it up in a
template and stores it locally).

Eventually I want to extend this as mentioned above but...i want to
think a little about the structure of the code before plunging into
it...and this is where I need some help from any keen php-ers out
there...

I'm going to tackle all the remix stuff etc later (please feel free to
help!) but focus now solely on the basic fetching script...and to this I
would like to take things in a slightly new direction...

At the moment FM publishes manuals as static html with a basic template
wrapped around it. We have no capacity for any interesting methods for
adding extra functionality to the manuals. By interesting functionality
I mean:
* adding comments/forums features
* generating anchors on headings
* adding tests/quizs (one of Andys requests)

so instead of building this into Booki/Objavi it might be more
appropriate to build this into the publishing script I'm working on
now...this would mean that when you install the script on a server and
fetch a book you could decide to also include a comment feature, anchors
etc......these features would be added at publish (fetch) time and added
to the fetched static content on your server.

So...I want to add these features as plugins and design a simple method
for creating new plugins to extend the functionality of books...i dont
know what else could be added but there must be many many other ideas..

so...is there anyone out there that could help me design the basic
architecture for the plugins? i really dont know the best way to do it
and would appreciate any help/advice...


adam


--
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
German mobile : + 49 177 4935122
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals

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