1 Introduction
2 ------------
3
4 XSLTools is a collection of modules and packages facilitating the development
5 of applications based on XML, XSL stylesheets and transformations, notably Web
6 applications involving complicated Web forms potentially consisting of
7 editable hierarchical structures and potentially involving "live" or "in-page"
8 dynamic updates to portions of those Web forms.
9
10 Quick Start
11 -----------
12
13 Try running the demo:
14
15 python tools/demo.py
16
17 An introductory guide to creating applications can be found in the docs
18 directory - see docs/index.html for the start page.
19
20 Contact, Copyright and Licence Information
21 ------------------------------------------
22
23 The current Web page for XSLTools at the time of release is:
24
25 http://www.boddie.org.uk/python/XSLTools.html
26
27 Copyright and licence information can be found in the docs directory - see
28 docs/COPYING.txt, docs/LICENCE.txt and docs/LICENCE-Sarissa.txt for more
29 information.
30
31 Dependencies
32 ------------
33
34 XSLTools has the following basic dependencies:
35
36 Package Release Information
37 ------- -------------------
38
39 libxml2dom 0.3.3
40 libxml2 Tested with 2.6.17
41 libxslt Tested with 1.1.12
42
43 The example Web applications require WebStack (release 1.1.2 or later).
44 The example PyQt applications have been tested with PyQt 3.15.
45
46 New in XSLTools 0.4.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4)
47 --------------------------------------------------
48
49 * Made translations specified using the template:i18n annotation take
50 priority over template:value annotations.
51 * Added expression-based template:i18n annotations, and provided fallback
52 output for such translations based on the value of the evaluated
53 expression.
54
55 New in XSLTools 0.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3.1)
56 --------------------------------------------------
57
58 * Changed the preparation of templates to produce rule-based output
59 stylesheets, thus permitting recursive templates. This requires an extra
60 expr-prefix annotation to be used in certain kinds of templates.
61 * Added a recursive template example application.
62 * Changed fragment production to use original template documents instead of
63 output stylesheets.
64 * Changed the in_page_resources attribute to provide the output identifier,
65 thus changing the prepare_fragment method in Web resources so that only
66 the fragment identifier needs to be supplied.
67 * Added the XSLForms.Resources.WebResources.prepare_resources method for the
68 preparation of initialiser and output stylesheets before an application is
69 run.
70 * Changed selectors to not automatically create elements in the form data
71 document unless requested to do so. Introduced a Form.get_selector
72 method in XSLForms.Fields.
73 * Permitted the creation of hierarchies of elements in
74 XSLForms.Utils.add_elements.
75 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
76 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
77 form data document itself.
78 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
79 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
80 * Fixed filesystem encoding issues in the Candidate example; fixed language
81 preference access in the Configurator and VerySimple examples.
82 * Changed the BaseHTTPRequestHandler version of the Candidate example to
83 store data in a subdirectory of the current working directory, thus
84 allowing the demonstration application to work after package installation.
85
86 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
87 --------------------------------------------------
88
89 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
90
91 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
92 ------------------------------------------------
93
94 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
95 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
96 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
97 and the template:i18n extension function.
98 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
99 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
100 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
101 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
102
103 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
104 ------------------------------------------------
105
106 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
107 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
108 are observed (in some cases, at least).
109 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
110 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
111 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
112 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
113 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
114 initialised using information from the template.
115 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
116 element initialisation where necessary.
117 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
118 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
119 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
120 elements.
121 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
122 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
123 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
124 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
125 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
126 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
127 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
128 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
129 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
130 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
131 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
132 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
133 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
134 documentation.
135 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
136 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
137 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
138 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
139 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
140 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
141 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
142
143 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
144 -------------------------------------
145
146 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
147 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
148 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
149 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
150 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
151 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
152 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
153 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
154 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
155
156 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
157 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
158 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
159
160 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
161 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
162 fails with a function like the following:
163
164 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
165 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
166 return fieldValue;
167 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
168 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
169 } else {
170 return fieldValue;
171 }
172 }
173
174 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
175 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
176 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
177 used from Konqueror.
178
179 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
180 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
181 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
182 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
183 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
184 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
185 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
186 browser.
187
188 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
189 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
190 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
191 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
192 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
193 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
194 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
195
196 Choosing an element-path:
197
198 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
199 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
200 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
201 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
202 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
203 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
204 element specified in the template:element attribute.
205
206 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
207
208 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
209 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
210 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
211 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
212 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
213 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
214
215 Stable element ordering and element-path:
216
217 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
218 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
219 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
220 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
221 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
222 positions in the document. For example:
223
224 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
225 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
226 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
227 </item>
228
229 In-page update...
230
231 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
232
233 Notes on XSL
234 ------------
235
236 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
237 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
238 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
239 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
240
241 Release Procedures
242 ------------------
243
244 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
245 attributes.
246 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
247 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
248 Update the release notes (see above).
249 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
250 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
251 changelog (and other files).
252 Tag, export.
253 Generate the example resources.
254 Generate the API documentation.
255 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
256 Archive, upload.
257 Upload the introductory documentation.
258 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
259
260 Generating the Example Resources
261 --------------------------------
262
263 In order to prepare the example resources, the prepare_demo.py script must be
264 run as follows:
265
266 python tools/prepare_demo.py
267
268 This will ensure that all initialiser and output stylesheets are created and
269 are thus installed by packages.
270
271 Generating the API Documentation
272 --------------------------------
273
274 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
275 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
276 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
277 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
278
279 ./tools/apidocs.sh
280
281 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
282 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
283
284 Making Packages
285 ---------------
286
287 To make Debian-based packages:
288
289 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
290 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
291 Debian tools happy:
292
293 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
294
295 3. Run the package builder:
296
297 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
298
299 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
300 distribution's root directory.