🚀 go-pugleaf

On Nov 30, 1:23 pm, Underdog <underdog.is....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Kevin, you're a life saver! I recently downloaded IBM DB2 9.1 boo
> files and gou this naughty surprise:
>
> http://publibfp.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr/BOOKS/DSNAGK13/FRONT_...
> FRONT_1.2 The future direction for the BookManager format
>
> As part of IBM's ongoing effort to deliver the best possible
> information experience to our customers, we are optimizing the
> information that is delivered with DB2 for z/OS for viewing in the
> information center and phasing out the BookManager® format.
>
> The BookManager books will continue to be provided for the life cycle
> of DB2 UDB for z/OS Version 8 and DB2 Version 9.1 for z/OS; however,
> we do not intend to deliver BookManager books for releases after DB2
> Version 9.1 for z/OS.
>
> The Information Management Software for z/OS Solutions Information
> Center includes all of the information that you are used to seeing in
> BookManager and PDF, plus many improved features for finding and
> viewing the information that you need to do your job. You can find the
> information center at the following Web site:http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/imzic
>
> We welcome your feedback about the information center. You can submit
> comments through the online reader comment form at the following Web
> site:http://www.ibm.com/software/data/rcf.
>
> I have tons of manuals in boo format, and some of those I'm sure I'll
> find no PDF replacement because they're old, but still used, Mainframe
> products.
>
> Is it in your plans a downloadable version that can process .boo files
> in batch mode? It sure would be time saver for me.
>


Yes, the base part of the code is here:  http://git.kev009.com/gitweb/?p=boo2pdf/.git;a=summary

Fair warning, you will need to be pretty experienced with Linux, Java,
and shell scripting to make sense of it.  It can, with a couple minor
changes, run in Windows.  http://git.kev009.com/gitweb/?p=boo2pdf/.git;a=blob;f=README.boo2pdf.txt

You would then supply a small shell command or script to run it
against a directory: i.e. ./convert.sh ~/Books/abc.boo abc.  That will
output abc.html and the images will be in SCR's cache directory (NOTE:
they will get wiped the next SCR run, so you need to either move them
or run the 'htmldoc' utility immediately to convert to PDF).

If that sounds over the top and you have too many for the web service,
it may be easier to FTP me the directory you need converted.

Regards,
Kevin



> On 20 out, 04:28, Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Please take this for a spin and let me know the results.http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/boo2pdf/
>
> > About:
> > This is a beta of boo2pdf, an IBM BookManager to PDF conversion app &
> > web service.  I'm currently experimenting with the HTML to PDF
> > backends and would like feedback with book files I haven't tried.
> > Once the code is cleaned up, I will dump it on my site.
>
> > Motivation:
> > I have a large collection of old IBM machines and documentation.  I
> > want this documentation indexed by my own search facilities and Google
> > for easy retrieval.  PDF is widely read, while BookManager requires
> > proprietary software and no search engines I know of parse it.
>
> > This will probably be useful to Mainframers as well.
>
> > Technical details:
> > I am using the JAR files from IBM SoftCopy Reader for Linux.  I've
> > decompiled these and written my own main class and and a wrapper
> > script to take care of setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH, Java classpath,
> > and other such glue code.  I use SoftCopy Reader's API to output HTML
> > and images from the BookManager files.  I then pass this to htmldoc
> > (http://www.htmldoc.org/) for PDF conversion.
>
> > Known Limitations:
> > - Currently, internal hyperlinks and headings are not parsed, indexed,
> > or otherwise handled.
> > - The Linux SoftCopy Reader does not convert some of the older
> > embedded image formats.  Possible formats are:  GIF, PNG. JPG, MET,
> > GDF, WMF.  I'm guessing it is one of the later that does not have a
> > Linux filter.  You will know an image did not convert by red text
> > indicating such in your PDF.  I've seen this in a few .boo files from
> > the early to mid '90s.
>
> > The whole app as it stands now is an exercise in inefficiency.  I
> > think I have enough data to bitbang a clean C implementation but would
> > need a lot of help in doing so.
>
> > Documentation, help, or words of encouragement welcome.  This has been
> > a fun and interesting project this weekend.
>
>