FOP Releases 1999

A partial record of FOP releases, 1999. Not all links are active.

[November 08, 1999] Apache-XML Open Source Project. A communiqué from Dirk-Willem van Gulik (WebWeaving, and 'ad interim chair for the Apache-XML project') announces that the Apache Software Foundation is launching a new effort focused on XML. Details on the initiative are presented in the announcement: "The Apache Software Foundation Launches xml.apache.org Technology Project. Industry Leaders Donate Technology to Provide Open Source Tools for XML." Van Gulik writes: "For years now the Apache web server has been providing a solid Web technology foundation, but it offered little beyond this base protocol layer. As web sites have become more complex, interoperability at the content level has become more important to all of us. The Apache Software Foundation felt that a new set of basic, solid, standards-compliant building blocks were called for. Seeded by contributions from IBM, Sun, DataChannel, Bowstreet, Exoffice and individuals such as James Tauber and Stefano Mazzocchi we now have a solid line up of components ready to be hammered on: (1) Xerces - a fast, robust and compliant XML parser; (2) Xalan - an XSLT style sheet processor, based on the LotusXSL contribution; (3) FOP - James Tauber's implementation of the W3C XSL:FO (formatting object) specification in Java. These building blocks are not very web or server centric. There is a functional 'example' implementation that is a bit closer to home: (4) Cocoon - An XML web publishing framework, Cocoon is a powerful framework for XML web publishing which brings a whole new world of abstraction and ease to consolidated web site creation and management based on the XML paradigm and related technologies. Just like Apache, anyone is welcome to come along, work on this, add components, and patch in changes. Although the above line up is quite complete and functional, when you download the code you will find that there is significant overlap, and perhaps quite some re-architecting to do." The URL will be: http://xml.apache.org. See description and references in "Apache XML Project."
[October 14, 1999] FOP Version 0.11.0 Released. James Tauber recently announced the release of FOP version 0.11.0. FOP (an An Open-Source XSL Formatter and Renderer) is a "print formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. It is a Java 1.1 application that reads a formatting object tree and then turns it into a PDF document. The formatting object tree, can be in the form of an XML document (output by an XSLT engine like XT) or can be passed in memory as a DOM Document or (in the case of XT) SAX events." The major code changes in version 0.11.0: "The way in which the formatting object tree creates the area tree has radically changed to allow much easier support for keeps, etc in the future. Numerous bugs were introduced (hence the delay in release) but even more fixed. In particular, line breaks work within inline-sequences now. FOP now uses namespaces. The prefix 'fo' is no longer hard-coded. This version supports all of the Latin-1 characters now as well as some others available in PDF. Font metrics and character encoding mappings are specified in XML at compile time. Thanks to Fotis Jannidis for doing the conversion to XML for me. Basic display-graphic support is now in, but I consider it unusable at present." For related software, see "Passive TeX' - Using TeX to format XSL Formatting Objects" (Sebastian Rahtz) and listings in "XSL/XSLT Software Support." Note that Tauber has set up a mailing list for FOP development.
[September 24, 1999] FOP 0.10.0 Released. A posting from James Tauber announced a new release of FOP (version 0.10.0). FOP ('A Formatting Object to PDF Formatter/Renderer') is a "print formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. It is a Java 1.1 application that reads a formatting object tree and then turns it into a PDF document. The formatting object tree, can be in the form of an XML document (output by an XSLT engine like XT) or can be passed in memory as a DOM Document or (in the case of XT) SAX events." As for the new release: "This version is much faster. A 100-page test document that used to take 50 seconds in 0.9.x now takes 15 seconds. Some important bugs have been fixed. This version is approaching actually being usable for real work. Very simple support for a tiny bit of SVG. break-before and break-after implemented. Justification bug fixed. text-indent implemented. font-weight as number implemented. line-height as number implemented. Java source for properties now generated from XML document via XSLT. Added support for emdash, copyright, non-breaking-space and section Detects inline-sequence directly under flow. Display rules can go in blocks. List item labels now obey start-indent. Page breaks mid-list now (appear to) work. Along with the release of FOP 0.10.0, I've released a preliminary version of an XSL stylesheet for XHTML. It only covers those things FOP supports, but it might be useful either as a sample XSL stylesheet (that uses the FO vocabulary) or for printing HTML documents. This latter use will be a lot more viable once I implement keeps and tables in FOP. One of the things that's new in FOP 0.10.0 is that the Java source code for the classes for each XSL property is generated by applying an XSLT transform to an XML representation of the properties. This XML representation of the properties is a bit like the datatype definitions being worked on in the XML Schema WG. This got be thinking about turning what I've done into a more general solution. . ." For related XSL/XSLT tools, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support."
[July 19, 1999] Release of FOP Version 0.8.1. James Tauber recently announced a new release of FOP: A Formatting Object to PDF Translator. FOP is a "print formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. It is a Java 1.1 application that reads a formatting object tree and then turns it into a PDF document. The formatting object tree, can be in the form of an XML document (output by an XSLT engine like XT) or can be passed in memory as a DOM Document. Note that FOP is still alpha. It is slow, buggy and doesn't support much of the XSL spec. It's getting there, though... Changes in this version are mostly bug fixes relating to lists: "If unknown metric for a particular character, assumes width of 'N'. Page breaks between blocks within blocks produce the right number of block areas on the new page. PDF more heavily commented for testing purposes. Version class implemented for consistency within Cocoon. Null display spaces not represented in PDF. Made XML output of areas/spaces pretty-printed. Removed some old XML output code that wasn't used. Fixed bug where half-leading display spaces were put in for block areas with no lines. Fixed bug that labels take up block-progression space in addition to body. If first word in line won't fit, it now overruns rather than goes into infinite loop (code for truncation in there too, but currently commented out). provisional-distance-between-starts and provisional-label-separation are now actually used for lists. For related tools, see Sebastian Rahtz's Passive TeX and for related tools, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support."
[June 22, 1999] FOP 0.7.0 Release With Source Code. James Tauber has announced the release of FOP Version 0.7.0 with source code. FOP: An XSL Formatter is a Java-based formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. "FOP is a Java 1.1 application that reads a formatting object tree and then turns it into a PDF document. The formatting object tree, can be in the form of an XML document (output by an XSLT engine like XT) or can be passed in memory as a DOM Document." Changes in FOP version 0.7.0: (1) a new mainline class XTCommandLine that enables straight XML+XSL to PDF (using XT which must be downloaded separately) without having to run an XSLT engine and save the formatting object tree as a separate step. (2) FOP now handles multiple page sequences. (3) separation of the PDF-specific code that was within the area/space classes. This makes FOP more modular and will enable alternative output formats in the future." For related software, see "XSL Software Support."
[May 24, 1999] New Version of FOP. James Tauber recently announced the availablity of a new version of FOP: A Formatting Object to PDF Translator. FOP is a "formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. It is a Java application that reads an XML document representing formatting objects (e.g., the output of XT) and then turns it into a PDF document. FOP version 0.6.1 is a complete re-write in light of the most recent XSL working draft. It only implements a fraction of the formatting objects and properties but the overall framework is now there and it should be relatively easy to add more support (assuming the XSL working draft doesn't change too radically). FOP should still be considered alpha. There is no functional difference from 0.6.1 as far as the XSL side of things goes. Rather, the way FOP is invoked has changed. It is now possible to: (1) pass FOP a DOM Document rather than a filename. This makes it possible to embed FOP in other applications (such as XSLT engines and web servers), and (2) use any SAX parser, not just XP as before. I'm really keen to find out if people are able to get FOP working with a DOM Document . . ." For related tools, see "XSL Software Support."
[May 04, 1999] XSL Formatter 'FOP' Rewritten. James Tauber has announced the availability of a new release of 'FOP - a formatter driven by XSL formatting objects." FOP (A Formatting Object to PDF Translator) "is a Java application that reads an XML document representing formatting objects (e.g., the output of XT) and then turns it into a PDF document. This version is a complete re-write in light of the most recent XSL working draft. It only implements a fraction of the formatting objects and properties but the overall framework is now there and it should be relatively easy to add more support (assuming the XSL working draft doesn't change too radically). FOP should still be considered alpha." For references to other XSL software, see "XSL Software Support."

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive.

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Van Gulik writes: "For years now the Apache web server has been providing a solid Web technology foundation, but it offered little beyond this base protocol layer. As web sites have become more complex, interoperability at the content level has become more important to all of us. The Apache Software Foundation felt that a new set of basic, solid, standards-compliant building blocks were called for. Seeded by contributions from IBM, Sun, DataChannel, Bowstreet, Exoffice and individuals such as James Tauber and Stefano Mazzocchi we now have a solid line up of components ready to be hammered on: (1) Xerces - a fast, robust and compliant XML parser; (2) Xalan - an XSLT style sheet processor, based on the LotusXSL contribution; (3) FOP - James Tauber's implementation of the W3C XSL:FO (formatting object) specification in Java. These building blocks are not very web or server centric. There is a functional 'example' implementation that is a bit closer to home: (4) Cocoon - An XML web publishing framework, Cocoon is a powerful framework for XML web publishing which brings a whole new world of abstraction and ease to consolidated web site creation and management based on the XML paradigm and related technologies. Just like Apache, anyone is welcome to come along, work on this, add components, and patch in changes. Although the above line up is quite complete and functional, when you download the code you will find that there is significant overlap, and perhaps quite some re-architecting to do." The URL will be: http://xml.apache.org. See description and references in "Apache XML Project." [October 14, 1999] FOP Version 0.11.0 Released. James Tauber recently announced the release of FOP version 0.11.0. FOP (an An Open-Source XSL Formatter and Renderer) is a "print formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. It is a Java 1.1 application that reads a formatting object tree and then turns it into a PDF document. The formatting object tree, can be in the form of an XML document (output by an XSLT engine like XT) or can be passed in memory as a DOM Document or (in the case of XT) SAX events." The major code changes in version 0.11.0: "The way in which the formatting object tree creates the area tree has radically changed to allow much easier support for keeps, etc in the future. Numerous bugs were introduced (hence the delay in release) but even more fixed. In particular, line breaks work within inline-sequences now. FOP now uses namespaces. The prefix 'fo' is no longer hard-coded. This version supports all of the Latin-1 characters now as well as some others available in PDF. Font metrics and character encoding mappings are specified in XML at compile time. Thanks to Fotis Jannidis for doing the conversion to XML for me. Basic display-graphic support is now in, but I consider it unusable at present." For related software, see "Passive TeX' - Using TeX to format XSL Formatting Objects" (Sebastian Rahtz) and listings in "XSL/XSLT Software Support." Note that Tauber has set up a mailing list for FOP development. [September 24, 1999] FOP 0.10.0 Released. A posting from James Tauber announced a new release of FOP (version 0.10.0). FOP ('A Formatting Object to PDF Formatter/Renderer') is a "print formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. It is a Java 1.1 application that reads a formatting object tree and then turns it into a PDF document. The formatting object tree, can be in the form of an XML document (output by an XSLT engine like XT) or can be passed in memory as a DOM Document or (in the case of XT) SAX events." As for the new release: "This version is much faster. A 100-page test document that used to take 50 seconds in 0.9.x now takes 15 seconds. Some important bugs have been fixed. This version is approaching actually being usable for real work. Very simple support for a tiny bit of SVG. break-before and break-after implemented. Justification bug fixed. text-indent implemented. font-weight as number implemented. line-height as number implemented. Java source for properties now generated from XML document via XSLT. Added support for emdash, copyright, non-breaking-space and section Detects inline-sequence directly under flow. Display rules can go in blocks. List item labels now obey start-indent. Page breaks mid-list now (appear to) work. Along with the release of FOP 0.10.0, I've released a preliminary version of an XSL stylesheet for XHTML. It only covers those things FOP supports, but it might be useful either as a sample XSL stylesheet (that uses the FO vocabulary) or for printing HTML documents. This latter use will be a lot more viable once I implement keeps and tables in FOP. One of the things that's new in FOP 0.10.0 is that the Java source code for the classes for each XSL property is generated by applying an XSLT transform to an XML representation of the properties. This XML representation of the properties is a bit like the datatype definitions being worked on in the XML Schema WG. This got be thinking about turning what I've done into a more general solution. . ." For related XSL/XSLT tools, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support." [July 19, 1999] Release of FOP Version 0.8.1. James Tauber recently announced a new release of FOP: A Formatting Object to PDF Translator. FOP is a "print formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. It is a Java 1.1 application that reads a formatting object tree and then turns it into a PDF document. The formatting object tree, can be in the form of an XML document (output by an XSLT engine like XT) or can be passed in memory as a DOM Document. Note that FOP is still alpha. It is slow, buggy and doesn't support much of the XSL spec. It's getting there, though... Changes in this version are mostly bug fixes relating to lists: "If unknown metric for a particular character, assumes width of 'N'. Page breaks between blocks within blocks produce the right number of block areas on the new page. PDF more heavily commented for testing purposes. Version class implemented for consistency within Cocoon. Null display spaces not represented in PDF. Made XML output of areas/spaces pretty-printed. Removed some old XML output code that wasn't used. Fixed bug where half-leading display spaces were put in for block areas with no lines. Fixed bug that labels take up block-progression space in addition to body. If first word in line won't fit, it now overruns rather than goes into infinite loop (code for truncation in there too, but currently commented out). provisional-distance-between-starts and provisional-label-separation are now actually used for lists. For related tools, see Sebastian Rahtz's Passive TeX and for related tools, see "XSL/XSLT Software Support." [June 22, 1999] FOP 0.7.0 Release With Source Code. James Tauber has announced the release of FOP Version 0.7.0 with source code. FOP: An XSL Formatter is a Java-based formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. "FOP is a Java 1.1 application that reads a formatting object tree and then turns it into a PDF document. The formatting object tree, can be in the form of an XML document (output by an XSLT engine like XT) or can be passed in memory as a DOM Document." Changes in FOP version 0.7.0: (1) a new mainline class XTCommandLine that enables straight XML+XSL to PDF (using XT which must be downloaded separately) without having to run an XSLT engine and save the formatting object tree as a separate step. (2) FOP now handles multiple page sequences. (3) separation of the PDF-specific code that was within the area/space classes. This makes FOP more modular and will enable alternative output formats in the future." For related software, see "XSL Software Support." [May 24, 1999] New Version of FOP. James Tauber recently announced the availablity of a new version of FOP: A Formatting Object to PDF Translator. FOP is a "formatter driven by XSL formatting objects. It is a Java application that reads an XML document representing formatting objects (e.g., the output of XT) and then turns it into a PDF document. FOP version 0.6.1 is a complete re-write in light of the most recent XSL working draft. It only implements a fraction of the formatting objects and properties but the overall framework is now there and it should be relatively easy to add more support (assuming the XSL working draft doesn't change too radically). FOP should still be considered alpha. There is no functional difference from 0.6.1 as far as the XSL side of things goes. Rather, the way FOP is invoked has changed. It is now possible to: (1) pass FOP a DOM Document rather than a filename. This makes it possible to embed FOP in other applications (such as XSLT engines and web servers), and (2) use any SAX parser, not just XP as before. I'm really keen to find out if people are able to get FOP working with a DOM Document . . ." For related tools, see "XSL Software Support." [May 04, 1999] XSL Formatter 'FOP' Rewritten. James Tauber has announced the availability of a new release of 'FOP - a formatter driven by XSL formatting objects." FOP (A Formatting Object to PDF Translator) "is a Java application that reads an XML document representing formatting objects (e.g., the output of XT) and then turns it into a PDF document. This version is a complete re-write in light of the most recent XSL working draft. It only implements a fraction of the formatting objects and properties but the overall framework is now there and it should be relatively easy to add more support (assuming the XSL working draft doesn't change too radically). FOP should still be considered alpha." For references to other XSL software, see "XSL Software Support." Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive.