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 Packages Release Information
37 -------- -------------------
38
39 libxml2dom 0.4.3
40 libxml2 and libxslt Some combinations may not be reliable!
41 Tested with libxml2 2.6.17 and libxslt 1.1.12
42 Tested with libxml2 2.6.27 and libxslt 1.1.20
43
44 The example Web applications require WebStack (release 1.2.3 or later).
45 The example PyQt applications have been tested with PyQt 3.15.
46
47 New in XSLTools 0.4.5 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.4)
48 ----------------------------------------------------
49
50 * Fixed the result of transformations in XSLOutput: proper document nodes
51 are now produced.
52 * Added an XSLForms.Resources.Login module which provides resources to
53 support login screens and redirects.
54 * Fixed newlines in the attributes created from fields in XSLForms: CR
55 characters are no longer included since this caused the doubling up of
56 newlines in Firefox.
57
58 New in XSLTools 0.4.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.3)
59 ----------------------------------------------------
60
61 * Fixed translation selection for the template:i18n annotation attribute,
62 not just for the template:i18n extension function - more apologies for
63 resulting output changes!
64 * Improved the template fixing stylesheet and added some documentation for
65 the script and the related expr-prefix attribute.
66 * Introduced WebStack 1.2.2 EncodingSelector and encoding changes.
67 * Added docstring and return value for the write_month_to_document function
68 in XSLTools.XMLCalendar.
69
70 New in XSLTools 0.4.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.2)
71 ----------------------------------------------------
72
73 * Fixed translation selection when an unsupported locale is specified,
74 choosing the first locale as the default (rather than exposing the values
75 themselves as translations). Note that this is an unfortunate and subtle
76 change which may affect application output - apologies are hereby offered!
77
78 New in XSLTools 0.4.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.1)
79 ----------------------------------------------------
80
81 * Added a content type check in the XSLFormsResource class, permitting
82 non-form-based resources to access the raw request data, rather than have
83 the data processed unsuccessfully and consequently discarded.
84 * Added a script and a function to fix template namespaces after editing in
85 a careless editor.
86 * Changed libxml2mod and libxsltmod import details to try libxmlmods -
87 suggested by Lucian Wischik for libxml2dom.
88
89 New in XSLTools 0.4.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4)
90 --------------------------------------------------
91
92 * Made translations specified using the template:i18n annotation take
93 priority over template:value annotations.
94 * Added expression-based template:i18n annotations, and provided fallback
95 output for such translations based on the value of the evaluated
96 expression.
97
98 New in XSLTools 0.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3.1)
99 --------------------------------------------------
100
101 * Changed the preparation of templates to produce rule-based output
102 stylesheets, thus permitting recursive templates. This requires an extra
103 expr-prefix annotation to be used in certain kinds of templates.
104 * Added a recursive template example application.
105 * Changed fragment production to use original template documents instead of
106 output stylesheets.
107 * Changed the in_page_resources attribute to provide the output identifier,
108 thus changing the prepare_fragment method in Web resources so that only
109 the fragment identifier needs to be supplied.
110 * Added the XSLForms.Resources.WebResources.prepare_resources method for the
111 preparation of initialiser and output stylesheets before an application is
112 run.
113 * Changed selectors to not automatically create elements in the form data
114 document unless requested to do so. Introduced a Form.get_selector
115 method in XSLForms.Fields.
116 * Permitted the creation of hierarchies of elements in
117 XSLForms.Utils.add_elements.
118 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
119 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
120 form data document itself.
121 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
122 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
123 * Fixed filesystem encoding issues in the Candidate example; fixed language
124 preference access in the Configurator and VerySimple examples.
125 * Changed the BaseHTTPRequestHandler version of the Candidate example to
126 store data in a subdirectory of the current working directory, thus
127 allowing the demonstration application to work after package installation.
128
129 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
130 --------------------------------------------------
131
132 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
133
134 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
135 ------------------------------------------------
136
137 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
138 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
139 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
140 and the template:i18n extension function.
141 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
142 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
143 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
144 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
145
146 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
147 ------------------------------------------------
148
149 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
150 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
151 are observed (in some cases, at least).
152 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
153 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
154 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
155 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
156 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
157 initialised using information from the template.
158 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
159 element initialisation where necessary.
160 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
161 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
162 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
163 elements.
164 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
165 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
166 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
167 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
168 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
169 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
170 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
171 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
172 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
173 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
174 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
175 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
176 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
177 documentation.
178 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
179 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
180 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
181 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
182 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
183 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
184 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
185
186 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
187 -------------------------------------
188
189 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
190 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
191 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
192 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
193 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
194 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
195 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
196 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
197 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
198
199 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
200 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
201 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
202
203 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
204 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
205 fails with a function like the following:
206
207 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
208 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
209 return fieldValue;
210 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
211 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
212 } else {
213 return fieldValue;
214 }
215 }
216
217 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
218 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
219 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
220 used from Konqueror.
221
222 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
223 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
224 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
225 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
226 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
227 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
228 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
229 browser.
230
231 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
232 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
233 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
234 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
235 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
236 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
237 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
238
239 Choosing an element-path:
240
241 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
242 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
243 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
244 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
245 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
246 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
247 element specified in the template:element attribute.
248
249 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
250
251 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
252 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
253 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
254 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
255 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
256 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
257
258 Stable element ordering and element-path:
259
260 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
261 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
262 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
263 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
264 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
265 positions in the document. For example:
266
267 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
268 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
269 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
270 </item>
271
272 In-page update...
273
274 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
275
276 Notes on XSL
277 ------------
278
279 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
280 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
281 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
282 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
283
284 Release Procedures
285 ------------------
286
287 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
288 attributes.
289 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
290 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
291 Update the release notes (see above).
292 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
293 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
294 changelog (and other files).
295 Tag, export.
296 Generate the example resources.
297 Generate the API documentation.
298 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
299 Archive, upload.
300 Upload the introductory documentation.
301 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
302
303 Generating the Example Resources
304 --------------------------------
305
306 In order to prepare the example resources, the prepare_demo.py script must be
307 run as follows:
308
309 python tools/prepare_demo.py
310
311 This will ensure that all initialiser and output stylesheets are created and
312 are thus installed by packages.
313
314 Generating the API Documentation
315 --------------------------------
316
317 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
318 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
319 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
320 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
321
322 ./tools/apidocs.sh
323
324 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
325 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
326
327 Making Packages
328 ---------------
329
330 To make Debian-based packages:
331
332 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
333 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
334 Debian tools happy:
335
336 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
337
338 3. Run the package builder:
339
340 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
341
342 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
343 distribution's root directory.