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 0.5
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 1.3 or later).
54
55 New in XSLTools 0.6 (Changes since XSLTools 0.5)
56 ------------------------------------------------
57
58 * Added modular request handling methods to XSLFormsResource, altering some
59 of the examples to demonstrate the usage and overriding of these methods
60 in preference to overriding respond_to_form.
61 * Added methods to the Form class to support modular request handling.
62 * Added information about XSLT extension function usage to the advanced
63 template design document, linking to the housekeeping annotations section
64 of the template attribute reference guide.
65 * Observed changes in WebStack 1.3 and introduced default_charset usage in
66 the WebResources module.
67 * Added experimental OpenID support; improved the authentication resources
68 and mechanisms.
69 * Fixed the LoginResource to work correctly when detecting the protected
70 application's location.
71 * NOTE: Need to add persistence for OpenID associations.
72 * Added XInclude support in templates (requires libxml2dom 0.4.6 or later).
73 * Removed PyQt support since the advantages of designing user interfaces for
74 the Web using Qt Designer are questionable.
75 * Removed default encoding and path_encoding attributes from the
76 XSLFormsResource class, since the default response encoding should be used
77 instead or set using WebStack's EncodingSelector.
78 * Added a template:output annotation for the production of output content
79 where the annotations should not be considered for inclusion in a schema,
80 typically because the annotated content duplicates content elsewhere in a
81 template.
82 * Added a template:select annotation for the presentation of arbitrary
83 sections of a document within a template.
84 * Fixed handling of multipart form data, permitting file uploads for input
85 parameters which are outside the form document structure.
86 * Added special attributes indicating the presence of file uploads, using a
87 special file namespace in form documents.
88 * Added a template:sort annotation in order to control the ordering of
89 presented elements.
90
91 New in XSLTools 0.5 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.6)
92 --------------------------------------------------
93
94 * Renamed template:id to template:section in order to get around problems
95 and potential future problems with browsers (such as Konqueror 3.5.6)
96 which get confused loading documents with multiple id attributes, even if
97 only one is unprefixed. WARNING! This change is not backwards compatible.
98 * Added Ubuntu Feisty (7.04) package support.
99 * Tidied the documentation HTML.
100
101 New in XSLTools 0.4.6 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.5)
102 ----------------------------------------------------
103
104 * Improved the Login module, enabling the VerySimpleWithLogin example for
105 various frameworks.
106 * Relicensed under the LGPL version 3 or later.
107 * Upgraded to Sarissa 0.9.7.8 (compatible with LGPL/GPL version 3), removing
108 a test around DOMParser so that Konqueror 3.4.0 is still supported.
109
110 New in XSLTools 0.4.5 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.4)
111 ----------------------------------------------------
112
113 * Fixed the result of transformations in XSLOutput: proper document nodes
114 are now produced.
115 * Added an XSLForms.Resources.Login module which provides resources to
116 support login screens and redirects.
117 * Fixed newlines in the attributes created from fields in XSLForms: CR
118 characters are no longer included since this caused the doubling up of
119 newlines in Firefox.
120
121 New in XSLTools 0.4.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.3)
122 ----------------------------------------------------
123
124 * Fixed translation selection for the template:i18n annotation attribute,
125 not just for the template:i18n extension function - more apologies for
126 resulting output changes!
127 * Improved the template fixing stylesheet and added some documentation for
128 the script and the related expr-prefix attribute.
129 * Introduced WebStack 1.2.2 EncodingSelector and encoding changes.
130 * Added docstring and return value for the write_month_to_document function
131 in XSLTools.XMLCalendar.
132
133 New in XSLTools 0.4.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.2)
134 ----------------------------------------------------
135
136 * Fixed translation selection when an unsupported locale is specified,
137 choosing the first locale as the default (rather than exposing the values
138 themselves as translations). Note that this is an unfortunate and subtle
139 change which may affect application output - apologies are hereby offered!
140
141 New in XSLTools 0.4.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.1)
142 ----------------------------------------------------
143
144 * Added a content type check in the XSLFormsResource class, permitting
145 non-form-based resources to access the raw request data, rather than have
146 the data processed unsuccessfully and consequently discarded.
147 * Added a script and a function to fix template namespaces after editing in
148 a careless editor.
149 * Changed libxml2mod and libxsltmod import details to try libxmlmods -
150 suggested by Lucian Wischik for libxml2dom.
151
152 New in XSLTools 0.4.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4)
153 --------------------------------------------------
154
155 * Made translations specified using the template:i18n annotation take
156 priority over template:value annotations.
157 * Added expression-based template:i18n annotations, and provided fallback
158 output for such translations based on the value of the evaluated
159 expression.
160
161 New in XSLTools 0.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3.1)
162 --------------------------------------------------
163
164 * Changed the preparation of templates to produce rule-based output
165 stylesheets, thus permitting recursive templates. This requires an extra
166 expr-prefix annotation to be used in certain kinds of templates.
167 * Added a recursive template example application.
168 * Changed fragment production to use original template documents instead of
169 output stylesheets.
170 * Changed the in_page_resources attribute to provide the output identifier,
171 thus changing the prepare_fragment method in Web resources so that only
172 the fragment identifier needs to be supplied.
173 * Added the XSLForms.Resources.WebResources.prepare_resources method for the
174 preparation of initialiser and output stylesheets before an application is
175 run.
176 * Changed selectors to not automatically create elements in the form data
177 document unless requested to do so. Introduced a Form.get_selector
178 method in XSLForms.Fields.
179 * Permitted the creation of hierarchies of elements in
180 XSLForms.Utils.add_elements.
181 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
182 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
183 form data document itself.
184 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
185 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
186 * Fixed filesystem encoding issues in the Candidate example; fixed language
187 preference access in the Configurator and VerySimple examples.
188 * Changed the BaseHTTPRequestHandler version of the Candidate example to
189 store data in a subdirectory of the current working directory, thus
190 allowing the demonstration application to work after package installation.
191
192 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
193 --------------------------------------------------
194
195 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
196
197 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
198 ------------------------------------------------
199
200 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
201 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
202 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
203 and the template:i18n extension function.
204 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
205 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
206 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
207 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
208
209 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
210 ------------------------------------------------
211
212 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
213 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
214 are observed (in some cases, at least).
215 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
216 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
217 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
218 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
219 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
220 initialised using information from the template.
221 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
222 element initialisation where necessary.
223 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
224 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
225 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
226 elements.
227 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
228 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
229 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
230 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
231 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
232 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
233 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
234 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
235 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
236 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
237 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
238 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
239 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
240 documentation.
241 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
242 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
243 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
244 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
245 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
246 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
247 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
248
249 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
250 -------------------------------------
251
252 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
253 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
254 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
255 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
256 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
257 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
258 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
259 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
260 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
261
262 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
263 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
264 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
265
266 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
267 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
268 fails with a function like the following:
269
270 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
271 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
272 return fieldValue;
273 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
274 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
275 } else {
276 return fieldValue;
277 }
278 }
279
280 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
281 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
282 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
283 used from Konqueror.
284
285 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
286 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
287 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
288 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
289 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
290 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
291 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
292 browser.
293
294 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
295 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
296 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
297 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
298 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
299 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
300 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
301
302 Choosing an element-path:
303
304 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
305 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:section
306 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
307 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
308 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
309 element as the template:section attribute then the element-path should refer
310 to the element specified in the template:element attribute.
311
312 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:section and id:
313
314 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
315 the template:section attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
316 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
317 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
318 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
319 template:section and id can be placed on the same node, however.
320
321 Stable element ordering and element-path:
322
323 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
324 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
325 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
326 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
327 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
328 positions in the document. For example:
329
330 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
331 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
332 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
333 </item>
334
335 In-page update...
336
337 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
338
339 Notes on XSL
340 ------------
341
342 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
343 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
344 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
345 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
346
347 Release Procedures
348 ------------------
349
350 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
351 attributes.
352 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
353 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
354 Update the release notes (see above).
355 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
356 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
357 changelog (and other files).
358 Tag, export.
359 Generate the example resources.
360 Generate the API documentation.
361 Remove generated .pyc files: find . -name "*.pyc" | xargs rm
362 Archive, upload.
363 Upload the introductory documentation.
364 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
365
366 Generating the Example Resources
367 --------------------------------
368
369 In order to prepare the example resources, the prepare_demo.py script must be
370 run as follows:
371
372 python tools/prepare_demo.py
373
374 This will ensure that all initialiser and output stylesheets are created and
375 are thus installed by packages.
376
377 Generating the API Documentation
378 --------------------------------
379
380 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
381 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
382 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
383 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
384
385 ./tools/apidocs.sh
386
387 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
388 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
389
390 Making Packages
391 ---------------
392
393 To make Debian-based packages:
394
395 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
396 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
397 Debian tools happy. Try one of the following:
398
399 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
400 ln -s packages/ubuntu-feisty/python-xsltools/debian/
401
402 3. Run the package builder:
403
404 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
405
406 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
407 distribution's root directory.