[XML-SIG] Wanted - Heroes

[Andy Robinson]

(copying to xml-sig as this requires some parsing knowledge)

I presume most of you have heard of the Software Carpentry
competition
(www.software-carpentry.com).  If you have not, it is a design
competition which will fund the winners to develop some really
important Open Source software.  Greg Wilson, who runs Software
Carpentry, has asked if we can help them produce a bound set of
PDF versions of their documents for the Open Source Conference in
Monterey, July 17th. Technically I am sure we can do it, but the
ReportLab core team is working flat out to get the documents
ready for "Release 1.0".

Does anyone have a few evenings to spare?  This is a project up
to two or three people could work on.  We cannot offer money, but
the glory will all be yours...

The plan is as follows:
1. write a basic HTML-to-Flowables filter which initially handles
a very simple set of tags.  Use the very latest ReportLab
snapshot (ftp.reportlab.com/current.tgz). It must parse HTML or
XHTML and return a Platypus story (i.e. a list of flowables) as
follows:

<h1>...<h4>, <p>, <pre> will each correspond to a Platypus
paragraph with the formatting given in a stylesheet.  We already
support <b> and <i>.

We will provide a very rudimentary doctemplate to process this
story, so ReportLab expertise is not necessary.

3. Make a CGI script on www.reportlab.com (we can provide access)
that lets someone submit their HTML inside a form and either
makes a PDF, or tells them the first tag it cannot handle and the
line it occurred on.  We get this running really early -
preferably as soon as one or two tags can be handled.

4. Add more tags.  We need images (between, not within
paragraphs), numbered and bulleted lists, and very very basic
tables (<table>,<tr>,<td>, initially with no formatting, column
or row spanning).  Maintain a basic page saying what tags you can
work with.

5. Work on the formatting script and doc template with the SC
people until it looks great.  There will be a couple of options:
"format my proposal now" and "bind all entries together".

6. Finally, the HTML to PDF filter will go in our standard
library, with your name on it - maybe even next week!

I would expect such a tool to get a lot of attention at the
conference and afterwards, especially if it is web based and the
output is good looking.  If more people want to pitch in and add
more features, we could perhaps have a lot of conference
attendees using it to generate great documents.  And it will be a
fantastic example of the potential of ReportLab.

Please reply to this list; if several people express interest,
see if you can help each other and work together.

Best Regards,


Andy Robinson
CEO/Chief Architect, ReportLab Inc.