Your new title page templates handle the format and sequence of elements on title pages, but do not alter the handling of the individual elements that are included. For example, an author element can have many child elements that need arrangement. The way to change an individual element on title pages is to modify a template which uses a title page mode on that element. There are two levels of such templates:

If you want a customization to be applied to a given element when it appears on any type of title page, then customize its template in mode="titlepage.mode. Such templates can be copied from the stylesheet module fo/titlepage.xsl or html/titlepage.xsl, depending on your output type, and modified in your customization layer as needed.

If you want a customization only applied to a specific title page destination, then use a more specific mode such as that shown in the first list item above. You follow a similar process, in that you copy the template for that element with mode="titlepage.mode" from fo/titlepage.xsl or html/titlepage.xsl, and then change the name of the mode to the more specific name, such as book.titlepage.recto.mode, before making your customization changes. That custom template will be used in place of the mode="titlepage.mode" template.

The original templates are in html/titlepage.xsl or fo/titlepage.xsl, depending on your output type. For example, here is the HTML template for affiliation in that mode:

<xsl:template match="affiliation" mode="titlepage.mode">
  <div>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="class.attribute"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates mode="titlepage.mode"/>
  </div>
</xsl:template>

The template for handle author and editor elements in HTML calls a template named credits.div, a template that is also shared by othercredit elements.

<xsl:template match="author|editor" mode="titlepage.mode">
  <xsl:call-template name="credits.div"/>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template name="credits.div">
  <div>
    <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="class.attribute"/>
    <xsl:if test="self::editor[position()=1] and not($editedby.enabled = 0)">
      <h4 class="editedby"><xsl:call-template name="gentext.edited.by"/></h4>
    </xsl:if>
    <h3>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="class.attribute"/>
      <xsl:call-template name="person.name"/>
    </h3>
    <xsl:if test="not($contrib.inline.enabled = 0)">
      <xsl:apply-templates mode="titlepage.mode" select="contrib"/>
    </xsl:if>
    <xsl:apply-templates mode="titlepage.mode" select="affiliation"/>
    <xsl:apply-templates mode="titlepage.mode" select="email"/>
    <xsl:if test="not($blurb.on.titlepage.enabled = 0)">
      <xsl:choose>
        <xsl:when test="$contrib.inline.enabled = 0">
          <xsl:apply-templates mode="titlepage.mode"
                               select="contrib|authorblurb|personblurb"/>
        </xsl:when>
        <xsl:otherwise>
          <xsl:apply-templates mode="titlepage.mode"
                               select="authorblurb|personblurb"/>
        </xsl:otherwise>
      </xsl:choose>
    </xsl:if>
  </div>
</xsl:template>

If you do not want your author and editor names output as H3 headings, then copy this template to your customization layer and modify it as needed. If you want your author elements handled differently from your editor elements, then create a new template in mode="titlepage.mode" instead of using the shared credits.div named template.

At another level, perhaps you want author names on article title pages to be different from author names on book title pages. The DocBook XSL stylesheets are set up to use a more specific mode first. So instead of the above template, you would create two new templates, one using mode article.titlepage.recto.mode and the other using book.titlepage.recto.mode. Modify each according to your needs. If your author names are on the verso side (as specified in your title page spec file), you need to specify verso in the mode name instead. See the section “Title page element templates” for an example.

Following is the sequence of modes that are tried for each element on an article recto title page. This arrangement provides control of each element in any context on each side of each kind of title page. You cannot ask for more control than that.

article.titlepage.recto.auto.mode  Defined in the generated stylesheet
article.titlepage.recto.mode       Generic template just applies titlepage.mode, but can be customized.
titlepage.mode                     Defined in titlepage.xsl
[no mode]                          Default handling of the element