Thread:Thought about automating a pdf collection with the Nav template (1)

The Nav temp looks interesting ...

I had a thought -- it should be possible to develop a hack for the template which will automate setting up a print collection from the pages linked in the Nav template. That would be pretty cool -- a pdf link that will print the whole book from the collection of topics and sections.

The collection feature uses wiki text. So a Collection with subtitle "Just an Example" consisting of two chapters "Foo" and "Bar" each containing three articles will be saved as a page with the following wiki text:

;Foo
 * First_article
 * Second_article
 * Third_article


 * Bar
 * Fourth_article
 * Fifth_article
 * Sixth_article

The trick will be how to manage edits to the structure -- but perhaps we could use a feature where only after the text is completed -- the user adds the instruction to generate the pdf collection. for example {{Template:Navigation|pdf=yes} -- Once the pdf parameter is specified -- the collection is automatically generated.

Cheers