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 0.3.3
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. This requires an extra
51 expr-prefix annotation to be used in certain kinds of templates.
52 * Added a recursive template example application.
53 * Changed fragment production to use original template documents instead of
54 output stylesheets.
55 * Changed the in_page_resources attribute to provide the output identifier,
56 thus changing the prepare_fragment method in Web resources so that only
57 the fragment identifier needs to be supplied.
58 * Added the XSLForms.Resources.WebResources.prepare_resources method for the
59 preparation of initialiser and output stylesheets before an application is
60 run.
61 * Changed selectors to not automatically create elements in the form data
62 document unless requested to do so. Introduced a Form.get_selector
63 method in XSLForms.Fields.
64 * Permitted the creation of hierarchies of elements in
65 XSLForms.Utils.add_elements.
66 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
67 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
68 form data document itself.
69 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
70 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
71 * Fixed filesystem encoding issues in the Candidate example; fixed language
72 preference access in the Configurator and VerySimple examples.
73 * Changed the BaseHTTPRequestHandler version of the Candidate example to
74 store data in a subdirectory of the current working directory, thus
75 allowing the demonstration application to work after package installation.
76
77 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
78 --------------------------------------------------
79
80 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
81
82 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
83 ------------------------------------------------
84
85 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
86 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
87 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
88 and the template:i18n extension function.
89 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
90 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
91 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
92 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
93
94 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
95 ------------------------------------------------
96
97 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
98 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
99 are observed (in some cases, at least).
100 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
101 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
102 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
103 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
104 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
105 initialised using information from the template.
106 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
107 element initialisation where necessary.
108 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
109 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
110 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
111 elements.
112 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
113 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
114 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
115 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
116 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
117 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
118 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
119 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
120 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
121 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
122 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
123 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
124 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
125 documentation.
126 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
127 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
128 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
129 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
130 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
131 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
132 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
133
134 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
135 -------------------------------------
136
137 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
138 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
139 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
140 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
141 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
142 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
143 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
144 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
145 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
146
147 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
148 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
149 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
150
151 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
152 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
153 fails with a function like the following:
154
155 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
156 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
157 return fieldValue;
158 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
159 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
160 } else {
161 return fieldValue;
162 }
163 }
164
165 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
166 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
167 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
168 used from Konqueror.
169
170 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
171 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
172 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
173 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
174 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
175 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
176 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
177 browser.
178
179 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
180 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
181 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
182 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
183 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
184 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
185 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
186
187 Choosing an element-path:
188
189 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
190 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
191 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
192 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
193 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
194 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
195 element specified in the template:element attribute.
196
197 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
198
199 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
200 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
201 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
202 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
203 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
204 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
205
206 Stable element ordering and element-path:
207
208 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
209 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
210 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
211 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
212 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
213 positions in the document. For example:
214
215 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
216 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
217 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
218 </item>
219
220 In-page update...
221
222 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
223
224 Notes on XSL
225 ------------
226
227 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
228 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
229 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
230 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
231
232 Release Procedures
233 ------------------
234
235 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
236 attributes.
237 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
238 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
239 Update the release notes (see above).
240 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
241 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
242 changelog (and other files).
243 Tag, export.
244 Generate the example resources.
245 Generate the API documentation.
246 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
247 Archive, upload.
248 Upload the introductory documentation.
249 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
250
251 Generating the Example Resources
252 --------------------------------
253
254 In order to prepare the example resources, the prepare_demo.py script must be
255 run as follows:
256
257 python tools/prepare_demo.py
258
259 This will ensure that all initialiser and output stylesheets are created and
260 are thus installed by packages.
261
262 Generating the API Documentation
263 --------------------------------
264
265 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
266 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
267 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
268 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
269
270 ./tools/apidocs.sh
271
272 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
273 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
274
275 Making Packages
276 ---------------
277
278 To make Debian-based packages:
279
280 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
281 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
282 Debian tools happy:
283
284 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
285
286 3. Run the package builder:
287
288 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
289
290 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
291 distribution's root directory.