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ptc-22689331-Visitor
1-Visitor
July 10, 2012
Question

Writing FOSI Stylesheets with APP written into it

  • July 10, 2012
  • 7 replies
  • 1614 views

Hello all,


Thanks for the responses on my previous threads. We are learning and trying tocatch up as fast as we can, and I appreiciate everyone's input on past responses.


I wanted to know if everyone knew of any place to learn about APP styling code.


Some stylesheets we received from our mother company have APP code written into FOSI stylesheets. There are a lot of quirks with their system, and this is part of the bug. They can't print to pdf from edit view. They have to first resolve the document for styling and then print. Their goal was to provide for 2 columns in the fosi sheet with wrapped text around graphics. The problem is, we can't run batch processes if we have to resolve for styling from AE everytime.


I might not be able to undo the resolve for styling issue yet, but if I can understand APP better it might give me insight on how to change it in the future.


Thanks


Bryon Thomas

    7 replies

    B
    bibach1-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    July 10, 2012
    I think you may be getting your terminology a bit confused. FOSI
    (Formatting Output Specification Instance) is a US military standard style
    sheet language which is implemented by the original (going back to the late
    80s) Arbortext formatting engine, sometimes referred to as "the FOSI
    engine".

    APP (Advanced Print Publisher), formerly known as 3B2, is a completely
    different engine which was bought by Arbortext (just before they were
    bought by PTC) around 2005 and has been gradually groomed as the
    replacement default formatting engine. They are very different and really
    can't work together in any meaningful way.

    Perhaps, when you say FOSI, you mean a Styler sheet. Styler provides a
    more user-friendly editor for style sheets and is capable of using several
    different "back end" technologies to produce different types of output.
    These include XSL (mostly for HTML-based outputs), RTF export, FOSI (for
    print and/or screen display in Editor) and, starting in the 5.4 series and
    by default for print output starting in 6.0, APP.

    A Styler sheet, as much as possible, expresses the formatting rules in
    an output-neutral way so that it can use the same rules to generate
    multiple output types. When this is not entirely possible, a "source edit"
    may be used, which allows embedding some code that is specific to a
    particular output type (and technology, or style sheet language).

    All that said, you raised two issues. I'll attack the simpler one first,
    which is the "resolved document" issue. Are you using DITA? If so, this
    is a normal part of the publishing process and is handled automatically by
    Editor or Publishing Engine. The process takes a DITA map and all of the
    topics it references and compiles them into one monolithic document, to
    which the style sheet is then applied. Assuming your batch process is just
    calling Editor or Publishing Engine to do the composition, you shouldn't
    have to worry about this. If you're running into problems, please provide
    specifics.

    As for learning APP, it's a potentially large subject and I'd say the best
    approach would depend on how far into it you want to get and what kinds of
    things you want to do. I'd start by posting more details about the
    specific issue you're dealing with now and let people here suggest specific
    approaches and possibly pointers to good starting points in the
    documentation.

    -Brandon 🙂


    P
    ptc-22689331-VisitorAuthor
    1-Visitor
    July 10, 2012

    I know this much (we're still learning through), the stylesheet (.style) has source edits written in APP code. Both our parent company and we are using 5.4 M100, which supports APP engine. Unfortunately, the stylesheet was written with many "source edits" to make the output appear properly.


    I'm not aware that a batch process could command to - edit resolved document for styling and then print to pdf from PE. I don't know if it does. Typically, as I understand it, the composition is straight from edit to compose and the stylesheet is applied. Most of the documents we're receiving, although supposed to be DITA, are XML. For us, since we aren't familiar with APP, it's hard to look at the source edits and make changes when changes are necessary. I don't know whereabout someone looks to learn more on the subject.


    Thanks again, and please forgive my lack of knowledge. You might see from another one of my threads that we're working through a lot of obstacles to get up and running, but we're determined to get there.


    Bryon

    P
    ptc-9533431-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    July 10, 2012
    Have you contacted PTC support or checked the website? I would think there
    is documentation on the APP styling language itself. That should help with
    understanding the indivudal edit commands.

    ..dan

    > I know this much (we're still learning through), the stylesheet (.style)
    > has source edits written in APP code. Both our parent company and we are
    > using 5.4 M100, which supports APP engine. Unfortunately, the stylesheet
    > was written with many "source edits" to make the output appear properly.
    > I'm not aware that a batch process could command to - edit resolved
    > document for styling and then print to pdf from PE. I don't know if it
    > does. Typically, as I understand it, the composition is straight from edit
    > to compose and the stylesheet is applied. Most of the documents we're
    > receiving, although supposed to be DITA, are XML. For us, since we aren't
    > familiar with APP, it's hard to look at the source edits and make changes
    > when changes are necessary. I don't know whereabout someone looks to learn
    > more on the subject.
    > Thanks again, and please forgive my lack of knowledge. You might see from
    > another one of my threads that we're working through a lot of obstacles to
    > get up and running, but we're determined to get there.
    > Bryon
    >
    >
    C
    ChrisWestern12-Amethyst
    12-Amethyst
    July 11, 2012


    Hi Bryon,


    The documentation will get you only so far with understanding APP source code edits (JS FOM API code) but beyond basic property or styling edits you will need to know more about how the engine works and builds pages.


    Courses and manuals are available on this if required.


    Regards
    Chris



    Chris Western
    tformat ltd.
    Arbortext sVAR/MSP/TRN
    www.tformat.com


    P
    ptc-22689331-VisitorAuthor
    1-Visitor
    July 13, 2012

    Thanks for the advice. The APP Help centre was partly helpful. Part of the issue too, is trying to understand and then correct what was given to us. I agree Chris, that I need to know more about how the engine works and builds its pages. We are working on interpreting their other js and acl files also.


    What confuses me here, too is that the stylesheet used in editing, and the stylesheet used in rds are identical when compared. The only difference is that the rds-stylersheet doctype folder has three .xsl files in it. I can't see in any files where theseare being told to runduring print.


    Hopefully, we'll make some progress until we can get some consulting on the matter.


    Thanks


    Bryon

    G
    GarethOakes16-Pearl
    16-Pearl
    July 16, 2012
    Note that the XML instance that is being styled will be different for RDS versus non-RDS. The RDS (resolved document for styling) is a "flattened" version of the original XML.

    -G
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