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 0.2.4
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 or later).
44 The example PyQt applications have been tested with PyQt 3.15.
45
46 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
47 ------------------------------------------------
48
49 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
50 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
51 * Added the template:i18n annotation and extension function.
52 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
53
54 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
55 ------------------------------------------------
56
57 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
58 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
59 are observed (in some cases, at least).
60 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
61 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
62 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
63 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
64 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
65 initialised using information from the template.
66 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
67 element initialisation where necessary.
68 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
69 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
70 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
71 elements.
72 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
73 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
74 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
75 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
76 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
77 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
78 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
79 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
80 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
81 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
82 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
83 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
84 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
85 documentation.
86 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
87 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
88 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
89 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
90 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
91 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
92 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
93
94 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
95 -------------------------------------
96
97 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
98 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
99 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
100 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
101 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
102 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
103 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
104 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
105 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
106
107 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
108 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
109 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
110
111 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
112 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
113 fails with a function like the following:
114
115 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
116 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
117 return fieldValue;
118 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
119 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
120 } else {
121 return fieldValue;
122 }
123 }
124
125 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
126 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
127 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
128 used from Konqueror.
129
130 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
131 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
132 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
133 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
134 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
135 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
136 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
137 browser.
138
139 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
140 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
141 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
142 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
143 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
144 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
145 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
146
147 Choosing an element-path:
148
149 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
150 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
151 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
152 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
153 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
154 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
155 element specified in the template:element attribute.
156
157 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
158
159 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
160 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
161 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
162 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
163 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
164 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
165
166 Stable element ordering and element-path:
167
168 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
169 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
170 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
171 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
172 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
173 positions in the document. For example:
174
175 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
176 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
177 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
178 </item>
179
180 In-page update...
181
182 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
183
184 Notes on XSL
185 ------------
186
187 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
188 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
189 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
190 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
191
192 Release Procedures
193 ------------------
194
195 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
196 attributes.
197 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
198 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
199 Update the release notes (see above).
200 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
201 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
202 changelog (and other files).
203 Tag, export.
204 Generate the API documentation.
205 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
206 Archive, upload.
207 Upload the introductory documentation.
208 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
209
210 Generating the API Documentation
211 --------------------------------
212
213 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
214 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
215 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
216 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
217
218 ./tools/apidocs.sh
219
220 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
221 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
222
223 Making Packages
224 ---------------
225
226 To make Debian-based packages:
227
228 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
229 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
230 Debian tools happy:
231
232 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
233
234 3. Run the package builder:
235
236 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
237
238 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
239 distribution's root directory.