vimod-pub/Start Guide.txt at master · sillsdevarchive/vimod-pub · GitHub

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Vimod Pub
Various Inputs Mutiple Ouput Digital Publishing

This is a set of files that can fairly quickly create various publishing outputs from one source.

The working format is XML.

Input formats could be XML, XHTML, HTML, Word, SFM or other structured text inputs.
The outputs could be XHTML, ePub (indirectoy), DictionryForMids, PDF
(PrinceXML or WkHtmltoPDF, one day maybe FOP), web pages, static page web app,
Smart phone App content

No DTD or schema is needed. The XML will most likely need some structure.

The system can add any command line tool. Most processing is done with XSLT transformations.
But other tools can be used such as CC tables, RegEx scripts like SED or any other.

There is a basic menu system that auto generates the first two menu levels.

pub.cmd
readMe.txt
Start Guide.txt
  scripts
    cct
    xslt
  setup
    projects.menu (auto generated on startup)
  data
    iso (language iso code)
      ProjectName1 (user created folder)
        setup
          project.menu (user created)
          part1.tasks (user created tasks for each menu item)
          part2.tasks (user created tasks for each menu item)
        xml (each interim file created is normally put in here by default)
      ProjectName2
        setup
          project.menu (user created)
          part1.tasks (user created tasks for each menu item)
          part2.tasks
        xml (each interim file created is normally put in here by default)
      setup
        project.menu (auto generated on startup)

The pub.cmd file creates the menues and controls the processing of menu items and tasks lists.
Any command line tool can be added to the pub.cmd file.


The conventions for creating the menu or tasks file.
1. Menu label or note for task
2. Semicolon to separate preceeding test form following commands
3. Required. The command found in the pub.cmd
4. Usually required. Script file name. Most don't need the path as the path is deduced by the script type.
4. Optional. The parameters if the command takes parameters. XSLT parameters should be entered like this.
	"param1=par1 param2='p2a p2b p2c' param3='c:\temp\file.txt'"
	Single quotes are changed to double qoutes before being run.
5. Optional. The input file if not the preceeding output file.
6. Optionsl. The output file name. Often only used on the last task.

Some other tasks do not have these parameters. But the probalby do not generate files.

XSLTs

XSLTs are parameterised so that they can be used with almost any XML files.
Until the documentation is better, you will need to read what is in the XSLT comments to
deduce how to use them. Several projects have working menus and tasks that can be studied and run.

Skill levels needed to run VimodPub
To be able to run VimodPub you need to be able to start a command window at the root of the VimodPub folder and type pub then [enter].
If it does not work you may need to setup a local_var.cmd file to give the location of the tools needed. A sample is provided.
To create your own content you need to understand the .menu file structure and the .tasks file structure.
In order to understand what tools there are, you need to be able to read a batch file. Documentation should help when provided.
You also need to be able to understand what parameters to supply to a XSLT transformation by looking at the transformation. Again Documentation will help.
Understanding of XML and XSLT is a huge help.
Many outputs use XHTML with CSS style sheets so a knowledge of this is very helpful.

ian_mcquay@sil.org
2013-03-05