10.2. Parameters of the XSLT stylesheets used to convert an ebook specification to Web Help

Parameters starting with "wh-" are pseudo-parameters. They may or may not be passed to the XSLT stylesheets, but the important thing to remember is that they are also interpreted by ebookc itself. Consequently you cannot specify them in an XSLT stylesheet which customizes the stock ones.

Parameter Value Default Value Description
omit-toc-root 'no' | 'yes' 'yes' Specify 'yes' if you want the title of the book to be the root of the Web Help TOC.
wh---CSS_VAR_NAME String. A valid CSS property value. No default.

This kind of parameter may be used to override any of the default values of the CSS variables specified in any of the NNtheme.css template files (all found in ebookc_install_dir/whc_template/_wh/).

For example, the main NNtheme.css template file:

body {
    ...
    --navigation-width: 33%;
    ...
} 

The wh---navigation-width CSS variable is used as follows in NNcommon.css, another CSS template file:

#wh-navigation {
    ...
    width: var(--navigation-width); 
    ...
}

Therefore parameter wh---navigation-width may be used to give the navigation side of the generated Web Help a different initial width. Example: -p wh---navigation-width "25%".

More examples in "XMLmind Web Help Compiler Manual, Getting started".

wh-collapse-toc 'no' | 'yes' 'no' Specifies whether the Web Help TOC should be initially collapsed.
wh-index-numbers 'no' | 'yes' 'no' Specifies whether words looking like numbers are to be indexed.

Examples of such number-like words: 3.14, 3,14, 3times4equals12, +1, -1.0, 3px, 1,2cm, 100%, 1.0E+6, 1,000.00$.

wh-inherit-font-and-colors 'no' | 'yes' 'yes'

When wh-inherit-font-and-colors is set to 'no', the navigation pane of the generated Web Help uses fonts and colors of its own, which will generally differ from those used for the content of the Web Help.

Setting wh-inherit-font-and-colors to 'yes' lets you use for the navigation pane the same fonts and colors as those used for the content of the Web Help.

So basically this parameter is a shorthand for:

-p wh---navigation-font-family inherit¬
-p wh---navigation-font-size inherit¬
-p wh---navigation-color inherit¬
-p wh---navigation-background-color inherit

See above wh---CSS_VAR_NAME parameters.

wh-jquery Relative or absolute URI. A relative URI is relative to the URI of a page of the Web Help. Absolute URI of the corresponding file found on the Google CDN. Specifies the location of the JavaScript file containing jQuery.

Example: https://code.jquery.com/¬
jquery-3.7.1.slim.min.js
.

Specifying an "https:" URL is recommended when the generated Web Help is stored on an HTTPS server.

wh-local-jquery 'no' | 'yes' 'no' Specifies whether all jQuery files should be copied to _wh/jquery/, where _wh/ is the directory containing the other Web Help files.

By default, the jQuery files are accessed from the Web (typically from a CDN).

Note that this parameter is applied after jQuery has been possibly customized using parameter wh-jquery. For example, "-p wh-jquery https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.7.1.min.js" copies a file downloaded from https://code.jquery.com/ to _wh/jquery/.

wh-layout The name of a layout. 'classic' Selects a layout for the generated Web Help.

For now, only 3 layouts are supported: 'classic', 'simple' and 'corporate'.

wh-responsive-ui 'no' | 'yes' 'yes'

Specifies whether the generated Web Help should be “responsive”, that is, whether it should adapt its layout to the size of the screen.

wh-ui-language "browser" or "document" or a language code conforming RFC 3066. Examples: de, fr-CA. 'browser'

Specifies which language should be used for the messages (tab labels, button tool tips, etc) of the generated Web Help.

Default value "browser" means that this language is the one used by the Web browser for its own messages. This language may often be specified in the user preferences of the Web browser.

Value "document" means that the language of the document should be used.

A language code such as en, en-US, es, es-AR, etc, may be used to explicitly specify which language should be used.

wh-use-stemming 'no' | 'yes' 'yes' Specifies whether stemming should be used to implement the search facility.

By default, stemming is used whenever possible, that is,

  1. when the main language of the XHTML pages to be compiled can be determined;
  2. when this main language is one of: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Romanian, Turkish.

The main language of the document is specified by the @xml:lang attribute found on the root element of the ebook specification being compiled; otherwise, it is assumed to be "en".

wh-user-css Filename or absolute URI of a CSS file. A relative filename is relative to the current working directory. None. Specifies the user's CSS stylesheet which is to be added to an XHTML page decorated by the compiler.

This file is copied to output_directory/_wh/user/.

Sample user's CSS wh_resources/header_footer.css as used in the following example:

-p wh-user-header¬
wh_resources/header.html
-p wh-user-footer¬
wh_resources/footer.html
-p wh-user-css¬
wh_resources/header_footer.css
-p wh-user-resources¬
wh_resources/header_footer_files
wh-user-footer Filename or absolute URI of an XHTML file. A relative filename is relative to the current working directory. None. Specifies the user's footer which is to be added to each page of the Web Help.

The content of the body element of user-footer is inserted as is in the <div id="wh-footer"> found in each page of the Web Help.

Same remark as for parameter user-header about the resources referenced by a user's footer.

Sample user's footer wh_resources/footer.html as used in the following example:

-p wh-user-header¬
wh_resources/header.html
-p wh-user-footer¬
wh_resources/footer.html
-p wh-user-css¬
wh_resources/header_footer.css
-p wh-user-resources¬
wh_resources/header_footer_files

More examples in "XMLmind Web Help Compiler Manual, Getting started".

wh-user-header Filename or absolute URI of an XHTML file. A relative filename is relative to the current working directory. None. Specifies the user's header which is to be added to each page of the Web Help.

The content of the body element of user-header is inserted as is in the <div id="wh-header"> found in each page of the Web Help.

If a user's header references resources (e.g. image files), then these resources must either be referenced using absolute URLs or these resources must be found in a user's resource directory and parameter user-resources must be specified.

Example:

  • The user's resource directory is called header_footer_files/ and contains header_footer_files/logo200x100.png.
  • ebookc is passed parameters -p user-resources PATH_TO/header_footer_files and -p user-header PATH_TO/header.html.
  • header.html looks like this:
    <html>
    ...
    <body>
    ...
    <img
    src="_wh/user/header_footer_files/¬
    logo200x100.png" />
    ...
    </body>
    </html>

    Notice the path used to reference logo200x100.png.

Sample user's header wh_resources/header.html as used in the following example:

-p wh-user-header¬
wh_resources/header.html
-p wh-user-footer¬
wh_resources/footer.html
-p wh-user-css¬
wh_resources/header_footer.css
-p wh-user-resources¬
wh_resources/header_footer_files

More examples in "XMLmind Web Help Compiler Manual, Getting started".

wh-user-resources Filename or absolute "file:" URI of a directory. URI schemes other than "file" (e.g. "http") are not supported for this parameter. A relative filename is relative to the current working directory. None. Specifies a user's resource directory which is to be recursively copied to output_directory/_wh/user/.

This directory typically contains image files referenced by the user's header, footer or CSS stylesheet.

Sample user's resource directory wh_resources/header_footer_files/ as used in the following example:

-p wh-user-header¬
wh_resources/header.html
-p wh-user-footer¬
wh_resources/footer.html
-p wh-user-css¬
wh_resources/header_footer.css
-p wh-user-resources¬
wh_resources/header_footer_files

More examples in "XMLmind Web Help Compiler Manual, Getting started".

§ System parameters

Such system parameters are not intended to be specified by the end-user. Such system parameters are documented here only because the end-user may see them referenced in some dialog boxes, in some configuration files or in the source code of the XSLT stylesheets.

Parameter Value Default Value Description
whc-index-basename URL basename '__tmp__index.whc_ndx' Basename of the Index XML input file of XMLmind Web Help Compiler.
whc-toc-basename URL basename '__tmp__toc.whc_toc' Basename of the TOC XML input file of XMLmind Web Help Compiler.