Phantomjs: Implementing PDF "Bookmark" feature

[dhilipsiva]

am implementing PDF "Bookmark" feature. I am working at a startup where we generate reports in PDF and I really need this feature.

I read the contributing guideline. And I created the a new Discussion Thread on Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/phantomjs/EV2IwIuhjtk .

But I find it a bit less active. Also, I need to implement this feature over this weekend. Since this looks "must-have" features, I thought I will go-ahead and create an Issue here directly. So let me cross post the content here

Here is what I researched so far:

AFAICT, many people wanted this feature since June 2013 (nearly 4 years as of writing this). Here are some of the Issues that I could come across on GitHub. Most of them are still open:

• Add "Layout" to generate PDF file
• When rendering to PDF, turn relative fragment identifiers into "bookmark" links
• Bookmark for HTML file converted to pdf
• Html to Pdf conversion
• Memory leak with WebPage class, multiple page loads

And maybe many more, but I am not sure. And there are still few unanswered questions on StackOverflow and Quora regarding this same issue. So it is clear that this is a feature that needs to be there.

I have done my home work:

If I am not wrong, I think the logic to add bookmarks will go here: https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/6abff248109fe2b6c0e7581e06dcf3c52b64a15d/src/webpage.cpp#L1291
And that I should use: https://github.com/qt-labs/qtpdf/blob/dev/src/pdf/qpdfbookmarkmodel.cpp to create bookmarks.

This is how I thought I should approach the problem:

I will add a bookmark object to the webpage object. And when we renderPdf(), I will look at this attribute to determine wether we should create a bookmark or not. Booksmarks will be created only if this attribute is set - that way, we do catch the people who are already using it by surprise (It will be disabled by default). First, I will parse through the page to find all heading tag and nest it, if need be. Then find "Fragment Identifiers" in a HTML and convert it into a Bookmark (nesting it under respective heading bookmarks).

This is related to the following Issues: #11442, #13959, #14019, #14673

CC: @ylf2345, @gladson, @anko, @dwarburt, @neilsustc, @hammond13, @caleblloyd, @ckreon, @jasonswearingen, @astefanutti, @wazico, @Nikolay-Kha, @MirrorC, @v-anyukov, @mwittmann, @AttitudeMonger, @sambasivaraomangapati

Any pointers/suggestions/inputs are greatly appreciated.

[ckreon]

This sounds great, and I hope we're able to get it working! Thank you for gathering all the pieces and putting a plan together.

[dhilipsiva]

Guys, Apologies Guys. I tried working on this since the last 2 days. But I was not able to figure out. Whatever little work I was able to do is in this commit: https://github.com/ds-forks/phantomjs/commit/369501a279fb3d84bf839a844e5bd9c878d17473 - leaving this here for people who might want to solve this problem in the future. Or if you have any pointers, I can take a crack at this again. Leaving this Issue open, unless the maintainers want to close this.

[jasonswearingen]

it's a tough issue, props to you for giving it a try :)

[stale[bot]]

Due to our very limited maintenance capacity, we need to prioritize our development focus on other tasks. Therefore, this issue will be automatically closed (see #15395 for more details). In the future, if we see the need to attend to this issue again, then it will be reopened. Thank you for your contribution!