[publican-list] Formatting Articles, a discussion of BZ #494147

[Paul Morgan]

On Wed, Dec 02, 2009 at 04:06:27PM +1000, Ruediger Landmann wrote:
> On 12/02/2009 03:39 PM, Jeffrey Fearn wrote:
>> Hi, I have been giving some thought to the issues around the  
>> formatting of articles vs books, and thought I'd poll the list 
>> for input.
>>
>> The question of layout seems to depend on what the fundamental  
>> difference between a book and an article is. The answer appears 
>> to be not much.
>>
>
> From a writing point of view, the fundamental difference seems to 
> be one of scope; an article is typically narrow in focus, and 
> generally "shorter" than a book (yes, I know, "how long is a piece 
> of string?")
>
> From a publishing point of view, I think the key difference is 
> that an article is often not published by itself, but as part of a 
> longer work like a magazine, journal, or book; which is where (for 
> example), I think that the difference in how Publican formats 
> books and articles in PDF is useful.
>
> Questions of layout aside, the default structure produced by 
> Publican for books (including our lengthy "Document Conventions" 
> section) I think overwhelms a short piece of writing, like a "How 
> To", which is the kind of thing I've used <article> for up to now, 
> for example:
>
> http://docs.fedoraproject.org/readme-live-image/en-US.html
>
> http://docs.fedoraproject.org/readme-burning-isos/en-US.html
>
> Of course, I know that the same effect can be generated by 
> overriding the defaults (and you'll notice that in those two 
> examples, I actually /added/ the Feedback section, which is not 
> there by default in articles...)
>
>> If this is the case there is no need to have a layout that 
>> varies more than required by the minimal structural differences 
>> between a book and an article then.
>>
>> So, as a base, an article should look pretty much like a book 
>> ... but why bother having articles at all then?
>>
>> Because there are special types of articles that could look different!
>>
>> Article has an attribute, class, which can contain the following values:
>>
>> * NULL
>> * faq
>> * journalarticle
>> * productsheet
>> * specification
>> * techreport
>> * whitepaper
>>
>> Now these things may be worth styling differently, perhaps much  
>> differently, than a book.
>>
>
> I agree; this has useful possibilities, because, like you say, 
> some of these (say, FAQ) might have practically no resemblance to 
> a book at all...
>
>> Maybe journalarticle should be dual column?
>
> And maybe somehow inherit the "parentbook" attribute if it's being 
> built as part of a <book> and display this somewhere on the page?

this would be useful.


>> Perhaps a whitepaper should have extra wide margins for people 
>> to scribble in?

I'm not sure what the difference would be between whitepaper
and techreport, but I could see a definite benefit to formatting
one of the classes as a slide deck, optionally (based on Makefile
parameter) with a notes section. 

For example, with notes the format would be portrait. Top half is 
slide, bottom half is notes. If Makefile "notes=0", the layout would
be landscape and no notes section.

-paul

>> A special cover page for a productsheet perchance?
>
> Or be laid out in landscape, designed to be folded in half?
>
> I'm sure other people here have other ideas about what we could do 
> with those specific formats...
>
> Cheers
>
> Rudi

-- 
Paul Morgan <pmorgan at redhat.com>
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