Hope someone with DXL expertise can help me determine if this solution is possible before I start down the road. I have a web based application where I need to export a group of documents (that potentially use different forms) to a single html file and/or word document (for a final “report” of sorts). The critical part is that I have rich text defined on some of the forms using the “Best Fit for OS” so that users can paste in formatted text from word, create tables, etc. I need to maintain the fidelity (formatting) of these rich text fields when they are exported to html/word. I was thinking that I may need to use DXL to do the transfer, but wasn’t sure if after doing all this development, the formatting would be maintained. Has anyone tried anything like this? Keep in mind, this is solely a web based application so the agent will run in the background. Would using COM be a better solution (for exporting to MS Word), and is it even a possibility? Any help appreciated!
Subject: DXL expert help requested
DXL is Domino XML. It is not HTML or Word data. To make it into HTML or Word data, you must perform some conversion. The final result depends on how you do the conversion.It is not possible to make an exact conversion from Rich Text to any other format, because Rich Text is specifically designed for Notes and it contains some features that only Notes supports. So all conversions are approximate. Even the conversion from Rich Text to DXL is not necessarily exact – there may be a few things that DXL does not support properly yet. If you are only concerned with common formatting information, like fonts, margins, tables, etc., then exported DXL does contain the raw data that you need to make a conversion to some other format.
Probably the best conversion available is the one built in to the Domino web server, or the Notes web preview server. This gives you HTML output. I think I would write a Java agent to get HTML directly from Domino, and use that as my starting point to build the report.
Subject: RE: DXL expert help requested
Thanks for the response! Yes, I knew I would have to convert the DXL eventually in the process, likely to HTML via the XSL Transformer, but I wasn’t sure what fidelity would be maintained after all the effort to design this. It may be enough to maintain the basics of the rich text, like fonts, margins, tables, returns, etc. Another option I have considered is to remove the rich text field and have users upload a word attachment. From reading other posts, it seems there may be a way to use DXL to “parse” out the content of the attachments. One other way I was thinking (assuming I removed the rich text field and only included file uploads) is to dynamically build the html file and then “embed” the attachment in the output file via an iframe. The fidelity would be maintained because it is simply referencing the attachment directly via a url and the user wouldn’t know that it wasn’t part of the form directly. If anyone else has input or ideas on this, I’m open to anything. Thanks again for the response Rod!
Subject: DXL expert help requested
If a third party product is an option, our Midas Rich Text LSX is another option that might save a lot of time and development. It allows generation of high quality HTML/XHTML with a great deal of control over the exact rendering, and allows use of CSS to better render the rich text. We have samples to show how this is done, and it can be done entirely from the backend or from the front end.
This is not meant to discourage you from using DXL, but to give you an easier option if you are interested.
Subject: RE: DXL expert help requested
Hi Ben, thanks for the response. Yes I’m familiar with the Midas LSX…I use it for one of my other clients, but I don’t believe this client is looking at bringing in a third party product. I’ll be investigating this as an option though. Thanks again!