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 0.3.2
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 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3.1)
47 --------------------------------------------------
48
49 * Changed the preparation of templates to produce rule-based output
50 stylesheets, thus permitting recursive templates.
51 * Changed fragment production to use original template documents instead of
52 output stylesheets.
53 * Changed selectors to not automatically create elements in the form data
54 document unless requested to do so. Introduced a Form.get_selector
55 method in XSLForms.Fields.
56 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
57 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
58 form data document itself.
59 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
60 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
61
62 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
63 --------------------------------------------------
64
65 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
66
67 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
68 ------------------------------------------------
69
70 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
71 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
72 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
73 and the template:i18n extension function.
74 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
75 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
76 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
77 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
78
79 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
80 ------------------------------------------------
81
82 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
83 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
84 are observed (in some cases, at least).
85 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
86 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
87 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
88 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
89 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
90 initialised using information from the template.
91 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
92 element initialisation where necessary.
93 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
94 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
95 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
96 elements.
97 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
98 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
99 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
100 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
101 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
102 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
103 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
104 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
105 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
106 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
107 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
108 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
109 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
110 documentation.
111 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
112 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
113 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
114 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
115 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
116 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
117 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
118
119 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
120 -------------------------------------
121
122 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
123 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
124 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
125 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
126 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
127 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
128 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
129 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
130 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
131
132 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
133 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
134 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
135
136 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
137 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
138 fails with a function like the following:
139
140 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
141 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
142 return fieldValue;
143 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
144 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
145 } else {
146 return fieldValue;
147 }
148 }
149
150 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
151 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
152 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
153 used from Konqueror.
154
155 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
156 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
157 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
158 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
159 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
160 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
161 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
162 browser.
163
164 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
165 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
166 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
167 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
168 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
169 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
170 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
171
172 Choosing an element-path:
173
174 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
175 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
176 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
177 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
178 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
179 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
180 element specified in the template:element attribute.
181
182 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
183
184 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
185 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
186 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
187 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
188 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
189 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
190
191 Stable element ordering and element-path:
192
193 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
194 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
195 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
196 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
197 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
198 positions in the document. For example:
199
200 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
201 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
202 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
203 </item>
204
205 In-page update...
206
207 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
208
209 Notes on XSL
210 ------------
211
212 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
213 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
214 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
215 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
216
217 Release Procedures
218 ------------------
219
220 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
221 attributes.
222 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
223 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
224 Update the release notes (see above).
225 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
226 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
227 changelog (and other files).
228 Tag, export.
229 Generate the API documentation.
230 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
231 Archive, upload.
232 Upload the introductory documentation.
233 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
234
235 Generating the API Documentation
236 --------------------------------
237
238 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
239 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
240 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
241 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
242
243 ./tools/apidocs.sh
244
245 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
246 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
247
248 Making Packages
249 ---------------
250
251 To make Debian-based packages:
252
253 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
254 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
255 Debian tools happy:
256
257 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
258
259 3. Run the package builder:
260
261 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
262
263 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
264 distribution's root directory.