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/lgpl-3.0.txt, docs/gpl-3.0.txt,
29 docs/LICENCE-Sarissa-lgpl.txt and docs/LICENCE-Sarissa-gpl.txt for more
30 information.
31
32 Additional Software
33 -------------------
34
35 The XSLTools examples make use of sarissa.js from the Sarissa distribution,
36 release 0.9.8.1. Copies of this file are found in the Resources/scripts
37 directory within each example's package.
38
39 Dependencies
40 ------------
41
42 XSLTools has the following basic dependencies:
43
44 Packages Release Information
45 -------- -------------------
46
47 libxml2dom 0.4.3
48 libxml2 and libxslt Some combinations may not be reliable!
49 Tested with libxml2 2.6.17 and libxslt 1.1.12
50 Tested with libxml2 2.6.27 and libxslt 1.1.20
51 libxslt 1.1.17 should be avoided
52
53 The example Web applications require WebStack (release 1.2.3 or later).
54 The example PyQt applications have been tested with PyQt 3.15.
55
56 New in XSLTools 0.4.7 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.6)
57 ----------------------------------------------------
58
59 * Added Ubuntu Feisty (7.04) package support.
60 * Tidied the documentation HTML.
61
62 New in XSLTools 0.4.6 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.5)
63 ----------------------------------------------------
64
65 * Improved the Login module, enabling the VerySimpleWithLogin example for
66 various frameworks.
67 * Relicensed under the LGPL version 3 or later.
68 * Upgraded to Sarissa 0.9.7.8 (compatible with LGPL/GPL version 3), removing
69 a test around DOMParser so that Konqueror 3.4.0 is still supported.
70
71 New in XSLTools 0.4.5 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.4)
72 ----------------------------------------------------
73
74 * Fixed the result of transformations in XSLOutput: proper document nodes
75 are now produced.
76 * Added an XSLForms.Resources.Login module which provides resources to
77 support login screens and redirects.
78 * Fixed newlines in the attributes created from fields in XSLForms: CR
79 characters are no longer included since this caused the doubling up of
80 newlines in Firefox.
81
82 New in XSLTools 0.4.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.3)
83 ----------------------------------------------------
84
85 * Fixed translation selection for the template:i18n annotation attribute,
86 not just for the template:i18n extension function - more apologies for
87 resulting output changes!
88 * Improved the template fixing stylesheet and added some documentation for
89 the script and the related expr-prefix attribute.
90 * Introduced WebStack 1.2.2 EncodingSelector and encoding changes.
91 * Added docstring and return value for the write_month_to_document function
92 in XSLTools.XMLCalendar.
93
94 New in XSLTools 0.4.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.2)
95 ----------------------------------------------------
96
97 * Fixed translation selection when an unsupported locale is specified,
98 choosing the first locale as the default (rather than exposing the values
99 themselves as translations). Note that this is an unfortunate and subtle
100 change which may affect application output - apologies are hereby offered!
101
102 New in XSLTools 0.4.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.1)
103 ----------------------------------------------------
104
105 * Added a content type check in the XSLFormsResource class, permitting
106 non-form-based resources to access the raw request data, rather than have
107 the data processed unsuccessfully and consequently discarded.
108 * Added a script and a function to fix template namespaces after editing in
109 a careless editor.
110 * Changed libxml2mod and libxsltmod import details to try libxmlmods -
111 suggested by Lucian Wischik for libxml2dom.
112
113 New in XSLTools 0.4.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4)
114 --------------------------------------------------
115
116 * Made translations specified using the template:i18n annotation take
117 priority over template:value annotations.
118 * Added expression-based template:i18n annotations, and provided fallback
119 output for such translations based on the value of the evaluated
120 expression.
121
122 New in XSLTools 0.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3.1)
123 --------------------------------------------------
124
125 * Changed the preparation of templates to produce rule-based output
126 stylesheets, thus permitting recursive templates. This requires an extra
127 expr-prefix annotation to be used in certain kinds of templates.
128 * Added a recursive template example application.
129 * Changed fragment production to use original template documents instead of
130 output stylesheets.
131 * Changed the in_page_resources attribute to provide the output identifier,
132 thus changing the prepare_fragment method in Web resources so that only
133 the fragment identifier needs to be supplied.
134 * Added the XSLForms.Resources.WebResources.prepare_resources method for the
135 preparation of initialiser and output stylesheets before an application is
136 run.
137 * Changed selectors to not automatically create elements in the form data
138 document unless requested to do so. Introduced a Form.get_selector
139 method in XSLForms.Fields.
140 * Permitted the creation of hierarchies of elements in
141 XSLForms.Utils.add_elements.
142 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
143 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
144 form data document itself.
145 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
146 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
147 * Fixed filesystem encoding issues in the Candidate example; fixed language
148 preference access in the Configurator and VerySimple examples.
149 * Changed the BaseHTTPRequestHandler version of the Candidate example to
150 store data in a subdirectory of the current working directory, thus
151 allowing the demonstration application to work after package installation.
152
153 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
154 --------------------------------------------------
155
156 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
157
158 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
159 ------------------------------------------------
160
161 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
162 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
163 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
164 and the template:i18n extension function.
165 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
166 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
167 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
168 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
169
170 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
171 ------------------------------------------------
172
173 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
174 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
175 are observed (in some cases, at least).
176 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
177 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
178 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
179 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
180 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
181 initialised using information from the template.
182 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
183 element initialisation where necessary.
184 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
185 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
186 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
187 elements.
188 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
189 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
190 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
191 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
192 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
193 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
194 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
195 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
196 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
197 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
198 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
199 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
200 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
201 documentation.
202 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
203 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
204 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
205 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
206 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
207 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
208 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
209
210 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
211 -------------------------------------
212
213 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
214 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
215 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
216 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
217 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
218 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
219 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
220 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
221 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
222
223 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
224 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
225 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
226
227 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
228 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
229 fails with a function like the following:
230
231 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
232 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
233 return fieldValue;
234 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
235 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
236 } else {
237 return fieldValue;
238 }
239 }
240
241 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
242 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
243 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
244 used from Konqueror.
245
246 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
247 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
248 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
249 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
250 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
251 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
252 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
253 browser.
254
255 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
256 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
257 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
258 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
259 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
260 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
261 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
262
263 Choosing an element-path:
264
265 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
266 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
267 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
268 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
269 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
270 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
271 element specified in the template:element attribute.
272
273 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
274
275 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
276 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
277 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
278 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
279 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
280 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
281
282 Stable element ordering and element-path:
283
284 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
285 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
286 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
287 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
288 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
289 positions in the document. For example:
290
291 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
292 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
293 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
294 </item>
295
296 In-page update...
297
298 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
299
300 Notes on XSL
301 ------------
302
303 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
304 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
305 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
306 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
307
308 Release Procedures
309 ------------------
310
311 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
312 attributes.
313 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
314 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
315 Update the release notes (see above).
316 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
317 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
318 changelog (and other files).
319 Tag, export.
320 Generate the example resources.
321 Generate the API documentation.
322 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
323 Archive, upload.
324 Upload the introductory documentation.
325 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
326
327 Generating the Example Resources
328 --------------------------------
329
330 In order to prepare the example resources, the prepare_demo.py script must be
331 run as follows:
332
333 python tools/prepare_demo.py
334
335 This will ensure that all initialiser and output stylesheets are created and
336 are thus installed by packages.
337
338 Generating the API Documentation
339 --------------------------------
340
341 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
342 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
343 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
344 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
345
346 ./tools/apidocs.sh
347
348 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
349 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
350
351 Making Packages
352 ---------------
353
354 To make Debian-based packages:
355
356 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
357 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
358 Debian tools happy:
359
360 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
361
362 3. Run the package builder:
363
364 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
365
366 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
367 distribution's root directory.