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April 20, 2003
Can't see the Forrest..
Can't see the forrest..: Dave is wondering what Forrest is. Forrest is an Apache project built around Cocoon that allows you to set up an XML/XSLT based publishing system quickly and easily.
Forrest is an XML standards-oriented project documentation framework based on Apache Cocoon, providing XSLT stylesheets and schemas, images and other resources. Forrest uses these to render the XML source content into a website via command-line, robot, or a dynamic web application.
Forrest removes much of the beginner problems when it comes to setting up Cocoon for things such as web-site publishing. Cocoon itself powers Forrest and provides a wide range of functionality such as - but not limited to:
- Multiple task-specific XML formats can be used (howtos, FAQs, changelogs and todo lists supported natively). This list will soon expand to include Docbook and Wiki formats.
- Multiple output formats supported, currently HTML and PDF (using Apache FOP).
- SVG to PNG rendering (using Apache Batik); simply drop a SVG in the appropriate directory and it will be rendered as PNG.
- Transparent inclusion and aggregation of external content, like RSS feeds.
- Anything else possible with the Cocoon sitemap. Database queries, charting, web services integration; the possibilities are constantly growing as Cocoon grows.
- Based on Java, Forrest is platform-independent, making for a documentation system that is just as portable as the XML data it processes.
Posted by Matthew at April 20, 2003 07:35 PM