WikiPublisher | PressBooks / China

The following table lists the features required in the layout of the book, China, that have not (yet) been implemented.

Layout requirements (to do)
Feature	Description	Comment
contents page	chapters can start on verso (even) pages	easy; redefine chapter command, but can’t hang chapter numbers (or treat as a bug)
frontispiece	on contents verso page, not facing the title page	easy; add a frontispiece placement option (but how do we force verso?)
images	full paperwidth — out to trimming marks	half works; imagesize=wide option adds marginpar to width (Hugh: or just max width in line w text?)
bibliography	format citation entries	hard; pressbooks has to generate citation markup. (Hugh: if we can do 2 col, hanging indent … can fake it? Yes)

The following table lists the features required in the layout of the book, China, that have been implemented.

Layout requirements (done)
Feature	Description	Comment
trimming marks	show marks on an A4 page where the book is cut to desired papersize	done; requires the crop package
trimming marks	use a custom paper size based on A5	done; redefine paperheight and textheight
halftitle page	grey decorative box to left page edge	done; redefine halftitle command
halftitle page	grey title text	works; use headingcolor metadata attribute
title page	grey decorative box to left page edge	done; redefine title command
title page	grey title text	works; use headingcolor metadata attribute
title page	placement and grey/black text layout	done; redefine title command
title page	setting landenreeks in white/black on grey	done; how do we do this? (Hugh: w an image?) use colorbox
legal notice	possibly specific layout requirements	works; redefine booklegal command
page numbers	white on grey background	done as grey border; redefine running header/footer command
frontmatter pages	numbers are arabic and mainmatter page numbers continue	feature or bug? (Hugh: let’s call it a bug)
contents page	entry format for chapter numbers in the left margin	works; use the tocloft package and redefine \numberline
contents page	words set in grey after each chapter title (subtitles)	works; where do they come from? use tocloft? (Hugh: let’s call them chapter metadata & we can pass you the variable to style? is that any better? :/)
contents page	entry format for sections without page numbers	done; use the tocloft package
chapter	grey chapter and section headings	works; tweak chapterstyle Jane and use headingcolor attribute
chapter	sans serif font, ragged right, and space between paragraphs	works; use bodystyle, justification, parasep attributes
chapter	chapters numbered on the toc page are not numbered in the body	feature or bug? numbers to match toc format? (Hugh: again lets call it a bug for now)
chapter	page numbers are aligned to chapter heading baseline	easy; redefine chapter style (very carefully — do later)
sections	sometimes start a new page in the final chapter	works; turn \clearpage attribute on for unnumbered sections (Hugh: this seems unimportant to me. Ignore)
body text	text blocks on a paperwidth grey background with a white caption	regular width works; new custom float option? (Hugh: just regular width to start?)
body text	grey text blocks in a box with top, inside, bottom rules	works; redefine the group class='frame' environment (but can’t get rules to outside margin)
marginpar	none; text centered in the paperwidth	done; fake it by going to the cut marks
captions	images and custom floats are not numbered	works; redefine caption setup? (Hugh: I’d like to get this to work, but to start we can number them I think?
bibliography	two columns of text	works; use group class=“multicol” and (optional) cfloatcols attribute

Completed: do the things supported “out-of-the-box” — then add trimming marks and get the body text centred, with a marginpar width to the outer cut. Are all the other features equally important?

We also need a method to invoke a named style file, so we can implement this and other designs without breaking existing code. The best way to do this is to use the class or style attribute on the <book> element to specify a china.sty file, loaded after we load wikibook-book.sty. Once we have a working example of this, we can publish china.sty, so people can use it to design and implement their own layouts (book skinning). We have also cleaned up how wikibook-book.sty handles title pages, because once we support custom styles, we are locked into a particular way of doing things.

Using the Attach:china.sty file depends on the following book metadata settings (explanations follow in brackets):

pagesize A5 (starting point for custom size)
titlepage fancy (starting point for redefining halftitle and title pages)
chapterstyle Jane (sans-serif numbered)
space french (regular space after full stop)
bodystyle sans (sans-serif text)
headingcolor Medium (medium-grey)
parasep space (space between paragraphs)
justification off (text set flush left)
trim on (print trimming marks)
dottedtoc off (page numbers flush left after chapter names)
autonumber 0 (number chapters, redefine sections)
bookmarks sections (include sections in toc and bookmarks)
fontsize 12pt (larger than default)
cfloatstyle plaintop (style for custom floats)
imagesize wide (wide images reach outer margin)

The china style file requires Wikibook PDF server version 1.2.0 or above, as it uses the subtitle feature added to support the Fortress book style.

Press Books: China