[xep-support] Sneek Peek Playground

[Kevin Brown]

We are excited to offer up to everyone our newest, exciting project. 
"Nimbus @cloudformatter" is a new tool, based on a variety of HTML tools for
creating XSL for XSL FO *in browser*.

First, you must use Chrome (for now). We are working through some
cross-browser issues.
Second, it's a free and open source tool which we will publish to Github for
all to have access to, maintain and contribute.

It's free, it's not perfect, but we have already done some pretty cool
documents.
It leverages the CSS2PDF work we did before to interpret CSS to XSL FO. 
The XSL generated uses the CSS styles you specify directly or in included
CSS files.

It has some advanced concepts, because you are working in a browser it saves
your work in browser cache as it goes, you can also export to cache and even
disk. You can load from cache, disk or online so you can easily share
complete templates (including sample XML, design and layout). In the Data
tree, you can insert both "fields" as well as "logic" (i.e. xsl:value-of,
xsl:if, xsl:choose/xsl:when/xsl:otherwise). You can also insert repeat items
(xsl:for-each) for such things as table-rows or entire docoument sections
(even the overall document itself).

You can export the XSL for use and can preview the PDF rendered with your
sample XML, the generated XSL through Cloudformatter which is RenderX's REST
interface implemented in the Amazon Cloud.

Live Interface:
http://www.cloudformatter.com/Nimbus.Editor

This would load Nimbus with the last thing you were working on from your
browser cache or default interface if nothing. You can use the "Data" tab to
select an XML to import and see the "design" interface which is a customized
version of the Summernote editor.

Live Sample of an Invoice:
http://www.cloudformatter.com/Nimbus.Editor?http://cdn.xportability.com/Samp
les/Invoice.html

Note in this sample: use the Toggle View option to expose fields, repeats,
logic and header/footer areas. Also note that you can easily share a design
through such a URL.

There is much to do, we have got it this far and it's time to open up to the
world to contribute. We are adding a property grid so that CSS style and
classes can be added with editing raw HTML. We also need to add namespace
support and a few other things. We'll post to Github shortly so you can
download and configure your own environment or you are always free to work
on the online version. It will stay there for free use by all.

Feedback and help is welcome!


Kevin Brown
Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing RenderX, Inc.
(650) 327-1000 Direct
(650) 328-8008 Fax
(925) 395-1772 Mobile
skype:kbrown01
kevin at renderx.com
sales at renderx.com
http://www.renderx.com