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