Bug#867538: fop: Please implement sidebars floating at the side of the body of the text

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

Package: fop
Version: 1:1.1.dfsg2-1
Severity: wishlist

Hi.  When trying to figure out how to make sure my docbook sidebars end
up on the side of the text, I tried following the instructions on
<URL: http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/SideFloats.html > and wrote a
simple example docbook file to test floating sidebars.  This do not work
and I get a message about a missing feature.  Please add support for
sidebars placed at the side of the text body.

When processing my example, I get this message and the sidebar has
disappeared from the resulting PDF:

  % xmlto --with-fop pdf db-sidebar-test.xml
  Making portrait pages on letter paper (215.9mmx279.4mm)
  Font "Symbol,normal,700" not found. Substituting with "Symbol,normal,400".
  Font "ZapfDingbats,normal,700" not found. Substituting with "ZapfDingbats,normal,400".
  Rendered page #1.
  Couldn't find hyphenation pattern for lang="en".
  Rendered page #2.
  The following feature isn't implemented by Apache FOP, yet: fo:float (on fo:float) (No context info available)
  No LayoutManager maker for class class org.apache.fop.fo.flow.Float
  Rendered page #3.
  Rendered page #4.
  /tmp/user/1000/xmlto.xvMMIW
  %

This is the example docbook file I use:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd">
<book id="index" lang="en">
  <bookinfo>
    <title>Test docbook sidebar</title>
  </bookinfo>
  <chapter id="installation">
    <title>Sidebar example</title>
    <highlights>
      <para>Some text in front of the sidebar.</para>
    </highlights>
    <sidebar> 
      <title>Sidebar example</title>
      <?dbfo sidebar-width="1.5in"?><?dbfo float-type="left"?>
      <para>A <sgmltag class="element">sidebar</sgmltag>
      can be used to emphasize certain
      content. It can intrude into
      the body area, or it can
      appear in side indents as 
      a margin note.</para>
    </sidebar>
    <para>Some text following the sidebar.</para>
  </chapter>
</book>

-- 
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen