note: I do not know what category to assign this request to, since I don't really know what they all mean. Help here would be appreciated.
As the summary implies, this request has to do with exporting the wiki. There already are several request for exports (that I found), but these are different and in my humble opinion less usefull. Also, these requests were not really used.
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FS#16: this asks for exporting a page to PDF.
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FS#159: wants to export the whole wiki to static HTML. While usefull for some, this is really different from my request.
==== THE REQUEST ====
I would like to be able to export the whole or a selected part of the wiki to effectively an e-book of good quality. Also, I would like to do this in a structured way, so that a good contents section can be made. A good index would of course be exquisite.
It is not necessary to use the layout of the website itself. The content itself should be used to make a nice e-book out of the wiki.
If there already is a way to do this (or part of this, which could make for a good base), I would very much like to hear.
=== THE REASON FOR MAKING THIS A MEDIUM SEVERITY REQUEST ===
I believe that integrating this into the wiki would make dokuwiki interesting for many extra people.
Firstly, many people like to have something in their hands for reading and editing or other reasons. While this could be done with some copy-pasting actions, the quality of the prints would be improved using this tool, I hope.
Secondly and more importantly, many people use (or would like to use, if this export option was available) dokuwiki for a project of which a report or book really would be the climax of their work. Think for instance of scientific projects, school projects or hobby projects (e.g. I'm using dokuwiki to create a world for roleplaying with some friends. To be able to actually make a book from this would be wonderfull). This reason can be reformulated as: "not all content is meant to stay online". At the moment, dokuwiki is not fit to use when this is the case.
=== SOME IDEAS ===
* FORMAT: to make this feature platform independent, PDF would be a logical choice. However, I do not know if this can be easily done - and if there is a good way to get influence over the layout etc.
LaTeX also would be an option. The advantages of LaTeX are:
- 1. can be used to make PDF and postscript, if we program it correctly (i.e. compatible with both).
- 2. platform independent
- 3. can use the raw text files easily to create .tex files.
- 4. a good contents page, index! and professional layout are LaTeX's home territory.
- 5. in the main file one can implement his or her personally prefered layout.
- 6. links can be adjusted easily to something like "(see `section name', p. `page nr.')" automatically.
Disadvantages of LaTeX are:
- 1. you need a program to convert the .tex files to a nice document.
- 2. some knowledge of LaTeX would be usefull for the user.
* advanced option: if LaTeX would be chosen, incorpotion of LaTeX code (that will not be visible in the website of course) in the raw file, would be of good use for the advanced user. This would be good for an advanced index.
* advanced option: make an index tree, where one can choose the files to export, and also can change the structure of the text (that is, the relation and order of the pages). I guess that this would be the place for checkboxes like "create index", "create contents page" etc.
* option: choose a page as introduction, or ba able to write a seperate page for that.