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Shape Shifting

 

Using different combinations of print metadata values, it is possible to produce thousands of different book layouts. While all are recognisable as Wikipublisher designs, by experimenting with different settings, authors can choose a design that matches the book’s purpose and style. Settings are controlled through a $Group.BookTemplate page, the PDF options button, or arguments in the (:typeset-book:) directive.

1.  Title page styles

Front cover options describes controls for the look of the pages in the Front Matter. For example, an author may choose HU (5½″ × 8½″) size, right aligned, sans font, count the halftitle as page i, and fancy title pages.

2.  Chapter styles

Chapter style options describes controls for the look of chapters in the Main Matter. For example, an author may choose Robyn, serif headings, coloured RawSienna, and numbered to level 3 (subsubsections) with sections (level 1 headings) in uppercase.

3.  Body styles

Body style options describes controls for the look of chapter body text. For example, an author may choose spaces between paragraphs, justification off, hrrepeat on (3 dingbats in a horizontal rule), serif text, and 10pt palatino with french spacing.¹ The fontsize is reduced automatically if the author selects a pagesize of A5 or HU.

4.  Presentation styles

Presentation style options describes the controls for the sequencing and presentation of various output elements.

5.  Horizontal rule styles

Authors can control the way Wikipublisher prints horizontal rules, which use a dingbat character (“clover cross”) by default. Horizontal rule style options lists the characters most commonly used for horizontal rule separators. For example, setting hrstyle=144 produces a snowflake. Wikipublisher also supports an “invisible rule” using the space character. Authors can insert an invisible rule by starting a new paragraph with two or more line-breaks (\\\) on a line by themselves.

This paragraph follows an invisible rule. The first line of the paragraph following a horizontal rule is not indented.

6.  Floating object styles

Floating object style options describes controls for the presentation of floating objects — figures, tables and custom floats. For example, an author may choose to allow wide images to rotate, to float tables “here” if possible, a ruled style for custom floats, with 2 text columns in any custom floats.

By default, Wikipublisher sets the custom float label to “Excerpt” and produces a “List of Excerpts” in the Front Matter. An author can specify the label given to custom floats by using the cfloat page text variable. For example, to change the label to “Exercise” an author uses the following markup on the book’s trail page:

(:cfloat: Exercise:)

This will automatically generate a “List of Exercises” heading for the contents page. Sometimes, this is not what the author wants. Authors can specify their own preferred heading as follows:

(:cfloat: Exercise "Exercises for the Reader":)

An administrator can set the same custom float label for all books by adding the following line to local/config.php after loading the Wikipublisher extensions (the second argument is optional and may be omitted):

SetCfloatName("Exercise", "Exercises for the Reader");

← Back Matter | Book Guide | Appendix: Technical Matters →

¹ Choosing french spacing suppresses the extra space normally added after a full stop. (↑)