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Printing. www.exlibrisgroup.com. v.15 e-Seminar Motke Keshet. Old System. Why a New Report System ?. Why XML / XSL ?. Built in support of UTF-8 (= any language can be displayed) Fast growing standard – help and support readily available.
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Printing www.exlibrisgroup.com v.15 e-Seminar Motke Keshet
Old System v.15 Printing
Why a New Report System ? v.15 Printing
Why XML / XSL ? • Built in support of UTF-8 (= any language can be displayed) • Fast growing standard – help and support readily available. • Regular text file – regular editor (vi, notepad) needed for maintenance. • XML contains all potential data from any relevant Z table. Adding data to display trivial. • XSL full language and support include files – common blocks can be encapsulated in common functions v.15 Printing
XML Background • XML – A standard for representing Data and its meaning • Like HTML – every data element is surrounded by tags • Unlike HTML – the tags are not standard, they are defined by the author of the XML document • Unlike HTML – the tags have semantic meaning, no visual meaning, I.e. they say nothing about how the data should be presented. v.15 Printing
XML Example <?xml version="1.0"?> <?xml-stylesheet href="pres.xsl" type="text/xsl" encoding="utf-8" ?> <emp> <employee> <first-name>John</first-name> <last-name>Smith</last-name> <birth-date>15/4/1975</birth-date> </employee> <employee> <first-name>George</first-name> <last-name>Dupont</last-name> <birth-date>17/6/1985</birth-date> </employee> </emp> v.15 Printing
XSL Background We use another standard / language – XSL – to convert the XML data to HTML presentation. XSL syntax is based on XML – tags everywhere. Here is a small XSL program for converting our XML example to HTML: v.15 Printing
XSL Example <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0"> <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:for-each select="//employee"> <b>First Name:</b> <xsl:value-of select="./first-name"/><br/> <b>Last Name:</b> <xsl:value-of select="./last-name"/><br/> <b>Birth Date:</b> <xsl:value-of select="./birth-date"/><br/> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> v.15 Printing
And the combination gives v.15 Printing
How Is It Combined You run an XSL parser called saxon, as follows: Saxon –o output.html input.xml input.xsl And get in output.html the previous slide. v.15 Printing
A closer look Let’s look at the following: <xsl:for-eachselect=“//employee"> <b>First Name:</b> <xsl:value-of select="./first-name"/><br/> We tell XSL to go through all the “employee” records, and for each of them display: • Literally ‘<b>First Name:</b>’ • The actual value of the current <first-name> • Literally ‘<br/> That is: we combine: • literal values, including HTML elements, • Values to be taken from the contents of the XML file. v.15 Printing
A Broader View So, if we can add HTML elements to the rendering, we can do anything HTML we want, such as presenting data in grids, deciding on fonts and sizes etc. More than that: XSL also contains functions. So it is possible to encapsulate report sections that appear more than once (e.g. Sublibrary address, patron address, bib-info etc.) in functions and invoke them whenever they are needed. v.15 Printing
XSL in Aleph The report data in Aleph (starting 15.2) are contained in XML files. For each report an XSL file is defined (=Template). This template determines: • what fields of the XML are part of the report • how they should be displayed. v.15 Printing
XSL in Aleph – Cont’ In addition, there are several XSL files which are common to all reports, and they are referred to by all the specific XSL templates. They contain definitions for the rendering of common report blocks such as the standard salutations, signatures, sublibrary address, patron address etc. In principle the system librarian can maintain (=translate, add/remove fields etc.) without actually knowing XSL, and rely on the patterns found in Aleph default XSLs. v.15 Printing
Report Generation DB tables translation Query client server XML XML XSL Parser XML XSL + HTML v.15 Printing
A Report Header Bib-info Sublib Address v.15 Printing
Its XML v.15 Printing
Its XSL (Part 1) <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0"> <xsl:include href="funcs.xsl"/> <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:call-template name="header"/> <!--section-01 (FREE)--> <xsl:for-each select="//section-01"> <xsl:call-template name="section-01"/> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:template> v.15 Printing
Its XSL (Cont’) <!-- START DATA --> <xsl:template name="header"> <xsl:call-template name="header-gen"> <xsl:with-param name="title" select="'Arrival Slip'"/> </xsl:call-template> </xsl:template> <!--SECTION-01 (FREE)--> <xsl:template name="section-01"> <xsl:call-template name="sublib-address"/> <xsl:call-template name="bib-info-hdr"> <xsl:with-param name="line" select="./bib-info"/> </xsl:call-template> <xsl:call-template name="table-open"/> <xsl:call-template name="display-gen"> <xsl:with-param name="label" select="'Doc Number:'"/> <xsl:with-param name="value" select="./z68-doc-number"/> </xsl:call-template> <xsl:call-template name="display-gen"> <xsl:with-param name="label" select="'Order Number:'"/> <xsl:with-param name="value" select="./z68-order-number"/> </xsl:call-template> <xsl:call-template name="table-close"/> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> v.15 Printing
Comments • ‘header-gen’, ‘sublib-address’, ‘display-gen’ are XSL functions that handle the actual display • All of them are implemented in funcs.xsl or one of the XSL files included in it • All specific templates contain the line ‘<xsl:include href="funcs.xsl"/>’ so they all can invoke the common functions. Now to Customization … v.15 Printing
Customization There are 2 basic customization: • Changing (or translating) labels • Adding or removing data (=Z table columns etc.) A more advanced customization - layout change – will be explained later. v.15 Printing
Changing Labels Since the XSL file is a regular ASCII file you just edit it and make the changes you want. v.15 Printing
Removing Fields Examine the following snippet: <xsl:call-template name="display-gen"> <xsl:with-param name="label" select="'Doc Number:'"/> <xsl:with-param name="value" select="./z68-doc-number"/> </xsl:call-template> <xsl:call-template name="display-gen"> <xsl:with-param name="label" select="'Sequence:'"/> <xsl:with-param name="value" select="./z68-sequence"/> </xsl:call-template> To remove a field, e.g z68-doc-number, simply delete the lines from ‘<xsl:call-template name="display-gen">’ To ‘</xsl:call-template>’ that contain it (= The blue lines) v.15 Printing
Adding Fields To add a field, “cut and paste” the same range of lines, then change “label” and “value” accordingly. E.g: <xsl:call-template name="display-gen"> <xsl:with-param name="label" select="‘Auto Claim:'"/> <xsl:with-param name="value" select="./z68-auto-claim"/> </xsl:call-template> v.15 Printing
Changing Relative Position The data will be displayed in the order it appears in the XSL file. So to change the order in print, simply change the order in the XSL. v.15 Printing
Clarifying Some Terms Each XML section can be displayed in one of three layouts: • Free • Grid • Split v.15 Printing
Free Layout v.15 Printing
Split Layout v.15 Printing
Grid Layout v.15 Printing
Common Funcs - 1 <xsl:template name="sublib-address"> <TABLE WIDTH="100%" STYLE="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial"> <tr><td width="70%"></td><td><xsl:value-of select="//sub-library-address-1-occ1"/></td></tr> <tr><td width="70%"></td><td><xsl:value-of select="//sub-library-address-1-occ2"/></td></tr> <tr><td width="70%"></td><td><xsl:value-of select="//sub-library-address-1-occ3"/></td></tr> <tr><td width="70%"></td><td><xsl:value-of select="//sub-library-address-1-occ4"/></td></tr> <tr><td width="70%"></td><td><xsl:value-of select="//sub-library-address-1-occ5"/></td></tr> <tr><td width="70%"></td><td><xsl:value-of select="//sub-library-address-1-occ6"/></td></tr> <tr><td width="70%"></td><td><xsl:value-of select="//sub-library-address-1-occ7"/></td></tr> </TABLE> </xsl:template> v.15 Printing
The function ‘display-gen’ is responsible for displaying most of the data in non-grid format. There are, however several options for displaying: • Display the label only if there is data attached to it (default) • Display the label even without data • Display the data right justified (numbers) • Display barcode with special barcode font • And several combinations In order to implement all options, display-gen can be invoked using arguments. Since most of the times only the default is used, it is usually called with just the 2 basic Arguments, namely ‘label’ and ‘value’. Common Funcs : Comment v.15 Printing
Aleph Reports Environment Server All XSL templates are stored in the server in /usm01/form_LNG. After any change you have to run: util I 6 This prepares a package to be downloaded when the client start running. To tell ALEPH to use XSL for printing, edit: aleph/a50_5/usm50/tab/form_print_method Client All XSL templates are downloaded to alephcom\files\USM50\Print Templates\LNG The XSL parser (saxon) is in alephcom\bin v.15 Printing