pdf view timeout

That's an interesting idea ... I just don't have a clear idea on how it could be done though ....

It would be simple to use hook_nodeapi to create pdfs when a node is created/edited, and store them in the file table as attachments, however I don't know how to put them back together in a full book: it doesn't look like tcpdf supports that kind of operation right now ...

Anyway I'll have a look at it, i like the idea

This would be useful in all versions.

Creating a pdf at the time a node is created/edited and saving it is far less server-intensive than re-creating the pdf on the fly every time someone views it. For single nodes, this would be simple, just save the pdf as a file and display it when viewed.

For books, it is more complicated, but I was looking at FPDI (http://www.setasign.de/products/pdf-php-solutions/fpdi/) which is an extension of FPDF that allows you to import pdfs into a new document. Something like that could be used to create a book by saving each page in its own pdf as a file, then importing the stored pdf for each book page into a new document instead of creating the entire book from scratch each time. It looks like FPDF and TCPDF use the same classes and functions, so it may be that you can use FPDI as an extension of TCPDF, too, with some minor tweaking (not tested).

If that works, it could be made even more efficient by storing the complete book as a file, too, and only recreate it when one of the book pages changes.

Good idea, so +1 in general, but I've tweaked the module to get rid of the pages of wasted white space it generates with books. I guess I should roll a patch and share it. Essentially, I create a pdf page at the start of the theming of the book and not for every node. So although the above-described pdf per node scenario would work great for regular nodes, it wouldn't be good for books (as I feel I've "fixed" them anyway).

Until I roll a real patch, here is what I changed (see the comments):

/**
 * Renders a node as a PDF file.
 */
function pdfview_node($node) {
  $path = drupal_get_path('module', 'pdfview');
  require_once($path . '/tcpdf/tcpdf.php');
  
  $pdf = theme('pdfview_pdf');
   
  if ($node->type == 'book') {
    //hack next line only
    $pdf->AddPage();
    $depth = count(book_location($node)) + 1;
    $pdf = pdfview_book_recurse($pdf, $node, $depth);
  }
  else {
    $pdf = theme('pdfview_node', $pdf, $node);
  }
  
  return $pdf;
}

and

/**
 * Renders PDF output for a node
 * @ingroup themeable
 */
function theme_pdfview_node(&$pdf, $node) {
  //hack, commenting out next line
  //$pdf->AddPage();
  
  $pdf = theme('pdfview_title', $pdf, $node->title);
  
  $author = strip_tags(theme('username', $node)); 
  //hack, commenting out next line
  //$pdf = theme('pdfview_author', $pdf, $author);  

  //hack, commenting out next line
  //$pdf = theme('pdfview_published', $pdf, $node->created);
  
  if (node_hook($node, 'view')) {
    node_invoke($node, 'view');
  }
  else {
    $node = node_prepare($node);
  }
  node_invoke_nodeapi($node, 'view');
  $content = drupal_render($node->content);

  if($node->type == 'book'){ // Remove the book-navigation links from the PDF
    $begin_remove = stripos($content,'<div class="book-navigation">');
    $end_remove = stripos($content,'</div></div>',$begin_remove);
    $content = substr_replace($content,"",$begin_remove,$end_remove-$begin_remove+strlen('</div></div>'));
  }

  $content = pdfview_check_images($content);
  $pdf->SetFont(PDF_FONT_NAME_MAIN, '', PDF_FONT_SIZE_MAIN);
  $pdf = theme('pdfview_html', $pdf, $content);
  
  return $pdf;
} 

Now if I can just figure out the justification issue I'll be a happy camper.