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 (0.3.6 recommended)
40 libxml2 Tested with 2.6.17
41 libxslt Tested with 1.1.12
42
43 The example Web applications require WebStack (release 1.2.1 or later).
44 The example PyQt applications have been tested with PyQt 3.15.
45
46 New in XSLTools 0.4.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.3)
47 ----------------------------------------------------
48
49 * Improved the template fixing stylesheet and added some documentation for
50 the script and the related expr-prefix attribute.
51
52 New in XSLTools 0.4.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.2)
53 ----------------------------------------------------
54
55 * Fixed translation selection when an unsupported locale is specified,
56 choosing the first locale as the default (rather than exposing the values
57 themselves as translations). Note that this is an unfortunate and subtle
58 change which may affect application output - apologies are hereby offered!
59
60 New in XSLTools 0.4.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.1)
61 ----------------------------------------------------
62
63 * Added a content type check in the XSLFormsResource class, permitting
64 non-form-based resources to access the raw request data, rather than have
65 the data processed unsuccessfully and consequently discarded.
66 * Added a script and a function to fix template namespaces after editing in
67 a careless editor.
68 * Changed libxml2mod and libxsltmod import details to try libxmlmods -
69 suggested by Lucian Wischik for libxml2dom.
70
71 New in XSLTools 0.4.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4)
72 --------------------------------------------------
73
74 * Made translations specified using the template:i18n annotation take
75 priority over template:value annotations.
76 * Added expression-based template:i18n annotations, and provided fallback
77 output for such translations based on the value of the evaluated
78 expression.
79
80 New in XSLTools 0.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3.1)
81 --------------------------------------------------
82
83 * Changed the preparation of templates to produce rule-based output
84 stylesheets, thus permitting recursive templates. This requires an extra
85 expr-prefix annotation to be used in certain kinds of templates.
86 * Added a recursive template example application.
87 * Changed fragment production to use original template documents instead of
88 output stylesheets.
89 * Changed the in_page_resources attribute to provide the output identifier,
90 thus changing the prepare_fragment method in Web resources so that only
91 the fragment identifier needs to be supplied.
92 * Added the XSLForms.Resources.WebResources.prepare_resources method for the
93 preparation of initialiser and output stylesheets before an application is
94 run.
95 * Changed selectors to not automatically create elements in the form data
96 document unless requested to do so. Introduced a Form.get_selector
97 method in XSLForms.Fields.
98 * Permitted the creation of hierarchies of elements in
99 XSLForms.Utils.add_elements.
100 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
101 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
102 form data document itself.
103 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
104 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
105 * Fixed filesystem encoding issues in the Candidate example; fixed language
106 preference access in the Configurator and VerySimple examples.
107 * Changed the BaseHTTPRequestHandler version of the Candidate example to
108 store data in a subdirectory of the current working directory, thus
109 allowing the demonstration application to work after package installation.
110
111 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
112 --------------------------------------------------
113
114 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
115
116 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
117 ------------------------------------------------
118
119 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
120 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
121 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
122 and the template:i18n extension function.
123 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
124 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
125 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
126 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
127
128 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
129 ------------------------------------------------
130
131 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
132 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
133 are observed (in some cases, at least).
134 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
135 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
136 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
137 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
138 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
139 initialised using information from the template.
140 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
141 element initialisation where necessary.
142 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
143 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
144 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
145 elements.
146 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
147 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
148 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
149 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
150 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
151 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
152 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
153 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
154 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
155 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
156 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
157 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
158 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
159 documentation.
160 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
161 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
162 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
163 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
164 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
165 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
166 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
167
168 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
169 -------------------------------------
170
171 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
172 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
173 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
174 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
175 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
176 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
177 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
178 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
179 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
180
181 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
182 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
183 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
184
185 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
186 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
187 fails with a function like the following:
188
189 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
190 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
191 return fieldValue;
192 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
193 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
194 } else {
195 return fieldValue;
196 }
197 }
198
199 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
200 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
201 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
202 used from Konqueror.
203
204 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
205 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
206 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
207 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
208 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
209 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
210 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
211 browser.
212
213 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
214 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
215 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
216 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
217 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
218 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
219 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
220
221 Choosing an element-path:
222
223 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
224 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
225 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
226 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
227 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
228 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
229 element specified in the template:element attribute.
230
231 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
232
233 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
234 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
235 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
236 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
237 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
238 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
239
240 Stable element ordering and element-path:
241
242 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
243 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
244 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
245 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
246 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
247 positions in the document. For example:
248
249 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
250 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
251 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
252 </item>
253
254 In-page update...
255
256 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
257
258 Notes on XSL
259 ------------
260
261 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
262 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
263 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
264 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
265
266 Release Procedures
267 ------------------
268
269 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
270 attributes.
271 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
272 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
273 Update the release notes (see above).
274 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
275 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
276 changelog (and other files).
277 Tag, export.
278 Generate the example resources.
279 Generate the API documentation.
280 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
281 Archive, upload.
282 Upload the introductory documentation.
283 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
284
285 Generating the Example Resources
286 --------------------------------
287
288 In order to prepare the example resources, the prepare_demo.py script must be
289 run as follows:
290
291 python tools/prepare_demo.py
292
293 This will ensure that all initialiser and output stylesheets are created and
294 are thus installed by packages.
295
296 Generating the API Documentation
297 --------------------------------
298
299 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
300 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
301 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
302 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
303
304 ./tools/apidocs.sh
305
306 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
307 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
308
309 Making Packages
310 ---------------
311
312 To make Debian-based packages:
313
314 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
315 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
316 Debian tools happy:
317
318 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
319
320 3. Run the package builder:
321
322 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
323
324 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
325 distribution's root directory.