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Change history

1.10 (January 31, 2024)

Enhancements:

  • New -fopconf configuration_file command-line option lets you specify the location of an Apache FOP configuration file. Ignored unless option -fop is also specified.
  • New -ahfconf configuration_file command-line option lets you specify the location of an Antenna House Formatter configuration file. Ignored unless option -ahf is also specified.
  • When generating PDF using Apache FOP and RTF, WML, DOCX, ODT using XMLmind XSL-FO Converter, the page numbers referenced by index entries could not be used as hyperlinks. There was no such limitation when generating PDF using RenderX XEP and Antenna House XSL Formatter.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 12.4.
  • Upgraded XMLResolver to version 5.2.3.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 21 platforms.

1.9 (September 18, 2023)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.5.1.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 11.6.
  • Upgraded XMLResolver to version 5.2.1.
  • Distribution ebookc-N_N_N-plus-fop.zip now contains Apache FOP 2.9 (including hyphenation and MathML support). This XSL-FO processor is automatically declared and thus, ready to be used to generate PDF or PostScript.

Bug fixes:

  • XSLT stylesheet parameter justified=yes possibly specified when converting an ebook specification to XSL-FO had no effect when attribute book/@includebasestylesheet was set to true.
  • Added a workaround for the following Apache FOP bug #48765: when XSLT stylesheet parameter hyphenate=yes was when converting an ebook specification to PDF and the document to be converted contained <a class="role-index-term">, FOP raised an NullPointerException exception in org.apache.fop.layoutmgr.inline.InlineStackingLayoutManager. getChangedKnuthElements.

1.8.1 (July 14, 2023)

Bug fixes:

  • The language fixup of the XInclude 1.1 implementation had the following issues when processing the (X)HTML5 pages comprising the ebook.
    • The language of the included element was determined using the xml:lang attribute only. Now both xml:lang and lang attributes are considered, with a priority to xml:lang as specified in the (X)HTML5 specification.
    • As a result of the language fixup, the transcluded element was given only an xml:lang attribute. Now the transcluded element always has both xml:lang and lang attributes set to the same value.

1.8 (June 12, 2023)

Enhancements:

  • Added a proc.copiablelinks parameter which makes it easy copying links to chapters, sections, tables, figures, etc, in order to share them with others. For example, send by email a link to a chapter found in the generated Web Help.
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.5.0, which supports the new corporate layout in addition to the classic and simple layouts.
  • Upgraded XMLResolver to version 5.2.0.

1.7.1 (April 20, 2023)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded XMLResolver to version 5.1.2.
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.4.1.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 20 platforms.

1.7 (March 8, 2023)

Enhancements:

Bug fixes:

  • Made the language fixup of the XInclude 1.1 implementation more conforming to the specification.
  • Embedding an image in an HTML source file using "data:" URLs (e.g. <image href="data:image/svg+xml;base64,PD94b...ZnPgo="/>) caused ebookc to fail with a “cannot resolve "data:image/...==", value of attribute "src"” error.

1.6 (December 5, 2022)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded Saxon to version 11.4. Doing this required replacing the Apache Commons Resolver (lib/resolver.jar) by the XMLResolver (lib/xmlresolver.jar).
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.3.4.
  • Distribution ebookc-N_N_N-plus-fop.zip now contains Apache FOP 2.8 (including hyphenation and MathML support). This XSL-FO processor is automatically declared and thus, ready to be used to generate PDF or PostScript.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 19 platforms.

1.5.2 (September 19, 2022)

Enhancements:


1.5.1 (April 14, 2022)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.3.1.
  • Distribution ebookc-N_N_N-plus-fop.zip now contains Apache FOP 2.7 (including hyphenation and MathML support). This XSL-FO processor is automatically declared and thus, ready to be used to generate PDF or PostScript.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 10.8.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 18 platforms.

1.5.0 (November 15, 2021)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.3.0.
  • Some internal changes were needed to make XMLmind Ebook Compiler compatible with XMLmind XML Editor v10+.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported
    • on Java™ 17 platforms;
    • on macOS Monterey (version 12.0), including on Macs having an Apple M1 (ARM-based) processor;
    • on Windows 11.

1.4.4 (May 14, 2021)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.2.0.
  • Distribution ebookc-N_N_N-plus-fop.zip now contains Apache FOP 2.6 (including hyphenation and MathML support). This XSL-FO processor is automatically declared and thus, ready to be used to generate PDF or PostScript.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 16 platforms.

Known bug:

  • When converting to PDF, using Apache FOP, a numbered program listing (e.g. <pre class="role-listing-1-c-tab4">) contained in an admonition (e.g. <blockquote class="role-important">), the line numbers are rendered completely outside the listing, at the left of the listing block.

    Did not find a workaround for what seems to be a FOP bug. There is no such problem with other XSL-FO processors (e.g. RenderX XEP, XMLmind XSL-FO Converter). This problem is not a regression of FOP 2.6. It was already there with older versions of FOP.


1.4.3 (November 30, 2020)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.1.1.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 9.9.1.8.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 15 platforms.

1.4.2 (July 20, 2020)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded flexmark-java (the software component used to parse Markdown and convert it to HTML) to version 0.62.2. This version adds support for “media tags” (audio, video, etc).
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.1.0.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 9.9.1.7.
  • Distribution ebookc-N_N_N-plus-fop.zip now contains Apache FOP 2.5 (including hyphenation and MathML support). This XSL-FO processor is automatically declared and thus, ready to be used to generate PDF or PostScript.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 14 platforms.

1.4.1 (February 26, 2020)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded Saxon to version 9.9.1.6.
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.0.1.
  • Distribution ebookc-N_N_N-plus-fop.zip now contains Apache FOP 2.4 (including hyphenation and MathML support). This XSL-FO processor is automatically declared and thus, ready to be used to generate PDF or PostScript.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 13 platforms.

Bug fixes:

  • When generating a single XHTML5 page, resource references found in the head of a source HTML page were not copied to the output file.

    Example, source HTML page equations.html, which is part of manual.ebook, contains MathML equations and thus requires the use of the MathJax support script:

    <head>
      ...
      <script async="async"
        src="https://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js?config=MML_CHTML"
        type="text/javascript"></script>
    </head>

    Command ebookc -f html1 manual.ebook out/manual.html did not create an out/manual.html file making used of the MathJax support script. This prevented out/manual.html to be correctly displayed in any Web browser other than Firefox (which natively supports MathML).


1.4.0_01 (November 25, 2019)

Fixed a bug which occurred when parsing a certain combination of ebookc command-line arguments.


1.4 (November 20, 2019)

Enhancements:

  • As of version 1.4, the easiest way to add CSS styles to an ebook specification is to set attribute includebasestylesheet of element book to "true". This very simple setting guarantees to effortlessly create a nicely formatted book. More information about this new attribute in Leveraging base.css, the stock CSS stylesheet.
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 3.0. The Web Help generated by whc v3 gets a fresh new look. Moreover:
    • It is now “responsive” by default, that is, it adapts its layout to the size of the screen (e.g. it can adapt to the screen of a smartphone in portrait mode). This feature is controlled by new parameter wh-responsive-ui.
    • It does not leverage jQuery UI anymore (only jQuery now). However some new parameters (e.g. -p wh---navigation-background-color "#F6F8FA") may be used to override most fonts and colors used in the generated Web Help.
    • New parameter wh-ui-language may be used to specify the language used by the messages of the generated Web Help (tab labels, button tool tips, etc). The default is to use the language of the Web browser.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 9.9.1.5.

Incompatibilities:

  • Web Help output format: the following parameters, all related to jQuery UI, are not supported anymore: wh-jquery-css, wh-jquery-custom-theme, wh-jquery-theme, wh-jquery-ui.

1.3.3_01 (September 12, 2019)

Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 2.3.2 because the the Web Help having the classic layout generated using whc v2.3.1 did not work in Google Chrome version 77+.


1.3.3 (September 9, 2019)

Enhancements:

Incompatibilities:


1.3.2 (April 19, 2019)

Enhancements:

  • The encoding of a Markdown file is now, by default, the system encoding (e.g. window-1252 on a Western PC). In previous version of ebookc, this default encoding was UTF-8 whatever the platform. If you want to explicitly specify the encoding of a Markdown file, please save your file with a UTF-8 or UTF-16 BOM or add an encoding directive inside a comment anywhere at the beginning of your file. Example:
    <!-- -*- coding: iso-8859-1 -*- -->
    
    Heading
    =======
    
    ## Sub-heading
    
    Paragraphs are separated
    by a blank line.

    The above example should work fine because ebookc now understands the GNU Emacs file variable called "coding".

  • Upgraded flexmark-java (the software component used to parse Markdown and convert it to HTML) to version 0.42.6.
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 2.2.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 12 platforms.

Incompatibilities:


1.3.1 (November 29, 2018)

Enhancements:

  • Improved the way aside and blockquote elements (especially those having attribute class="role-ADMONITION") are converted to RTF, WML, DOCX and ODT.

    This enhancement makes use of XMLmind XSL-FO Converter v6 new extension attribute xfc:render-as-table. If you want to restore the previous behavior, pass new XSLT stylesheet parameter -p xfc-render-as-table "" (its default value being "admonition aside blockquote") to ebookc.

  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 2.1.3_02.
  • Upgraded flexmark-java (the software component used to parse Markdown and convert it to HTML) to version 0.34.58.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 9.8.0.15.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 11 platforms.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler is now officially supported on macOS Mojave (version 10.14).

Incompatibilities:

  • Almost all supported Markdown syntax extensions are now enabled by default. In consequence, parameter load.markdown.more-extensions is no longer needed nor supported.

    If you want to revert to the minimal set of extensions which was enabled by default in the previous version of XMLmind Ebook Compiler, pass parameter -p load.markdown.less-extensions true to ebookc.

  • When registering XMLmind XSL-FO Converter with ebookc using the -xfc option, option -rtf.target=MSWord is automatically passed to fo2rtf. This option is needed to circumvent an obscure bug in the RTF loader of MS-Word, which does not handle table cell padding tags correctly.

1.3.0 (August 21, 2018)

Enhancements:

  • In addition to HTML, an ebook page may now be written in Markdown.

    Many “Markdown dialects” and many Markdown syntax extensions are supported, thanks to flexmark-java, the software component used to implement Markdown support in ebookc.

    However for this to work, you must be using a Java 1.8+ runtime. More information in Markdown support.

  • In a <pre class="role-listing-XXX">, tab characters are now expanded by default to up to 8 space characters. “Tab stops” may be controlled using new -tabN specification. Example: <pre class="role-listing-1-java-tab4"> means expand tabs to up to 4 space characters in this line-numbered Java listing. Other example: <pre class="role-listing-tab0-shell"> means: do not replace tabs in this Bourne shell listing. More information in Program listings.
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 2.1.3_01.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 9.8.0.14.
  • Distribution ebookc-N_N_N-plus-fop.zip now contains Apache FOP 2.3 (including hyphenation and MathML support). This XSL-FO processor is automatically declared and thus, ready to be used to generate PDF or PostScript.

1.2.0 (May 05, 2018)

Enhancements:

  • The resources found in a CSS stylesheet (e.g. file "texture.png" in "background-image: url(images/texture.png);" or file "core_styles.css" in "@import url(lib/core_styles.css);") are now automatically detected and processed by XMLmind Ebook Compiler.
  • Inserting a <?pagebreak?> processing-instruction in the XHTML5 source between paragraphs, notes, tables, lists, etc, may be used to force a page break when generating any of the output formats which uses XSL-FO as an intermediate format (PDF, RTF, DOCX, etc)..
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 10 platforms.
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 2.1.3.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 9.8.0.11.
  • New "HTML5 as an alternative to DITA and DocBook" tutorial.

Bug fixes:

  • When using Java 9 or Java 10 to run ebookc, a date like <revised modified="2018-04-27"/> was formatted as "2018 April 27" instead of expected "April 27, 2018".
  • An HTML resource called "foo.html" pointing as follows: <a href="bar.html#gee"/> to another HTML resource called "bar.html" caused a file called "bar.html#gee" (and not just "bar.html") to be created in the resource subdirectory of the output directory.

1.1.0 (February 27, 2018)

  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler now fully supports HTML 5.2. For example, your ebook pages may now contain picture elements.
  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 2.1.1.
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 9.8.0.8.

1.0.2 (December 08, 2017)

Enhancements:

  • Upgraded XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc for short) to version 2.1. The new compiler uses window.sessionStorage rather than cookies to store the internal state of the Web Helps it generates.
  • XMLmind Ebook Compiler, which passed all non-regression tests, is now officially supported on Java™ 9 platforms.
  • Updated message translations to nn (Norwegian Nynorsk) and nb (Norwegian Bokmål), thanks to a contribution made by Leif Halvard Silli.

1.0.1 (September 18, 2017)

Enhancements:

  • Added a "current_page_number / total_page_count" field to the page navigation headers/footers generated for the multi-page XHTML5 output format (-f html).
  • Upgraded Saxon to version 9.7.0.20.

1.0.0_01 (September 04, 2017)

XMLmind XML Editor v7.5 integration issue: the following warning the"role-index-term" element has an "data-end-range" attribute: ignoring any other content was reported for an end-range index term just containing an empty text node.


1.0.0 (August 31, 2017)

Initial release.


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