A maven2 plugin for Apache FOP

I googled for a maven2 plugin which uses Apache FOP for converting xml files into pdf files.

Since my search was not successful I made my own plugin.

Quick start:

1. Download the source:
   $ svn co http://subversion.banapple.de/public/maven-fop-plugin


2. Install the plugin:
   
$ cd maven-fop-plugin
$ mvn install

   
3. Get some xml file and an xsl file which transforms your xml to fo. I suppose these files are now somewhere in your maven project.


4. Configure your project to use the fop plugin:
   

   
   <plugins>
     ...
     <plugin>
       <groupId>de.banapple.mojo</groupId>
       <artifactId>maven-fop-plugin</artifactId>
       <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
       <configuration>
         <inputFiles>
           <basedir>src/main/xml</basedir>
         </inputFiles>
         <xslFile>src/main/xsl-fo/foobar-fo.xsl</xslFile>
       </configuration>
     </plugin>
     ...
   </plugins>
   

   
   


5. Start maven:
   $ mvn de.banapple.mojo:maven-fop-plugin:1.0-SNAPSHOT:fop
   

You should now have some pdf files in the target folder.

The plugin is simple. I followed the plugin development guide.
Not documented in the development guide is the usage of the DirectoryScanner with which filesets can be defined as parameters.
The rest of the code is mostly taken from the Apache FOP documentation.

The plugin has minimal functionality and only allows to convert to pdf. Apache FOP allows a lot of other configuration which may be added in future versions of this plugin.

If you like it a comment here would be nice. If you are missing a feature please comment here, too, and I will fix it if I find the time.

The official documentation is now at www.banapple.de.