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
40 libxml2 Tested with 2.6.17
41 libxslt Tested with 1.1.12
42
43 The example Web applications require WebStack (release 1.1.1 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 internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
52 and the template:i18n extension function.
53 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
54 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
55 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
56 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
57
58 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
59 ------------------------------------------------
60
61 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
62 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
63 are observed (in some cases, at least).
64 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
65 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
66 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
67 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
68 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
69 initialised using information from the template.
70 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
71 element initialisation where necessary.
72 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
73 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
74 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
75 elements.
76 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
77 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
78 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
79 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
80 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
81 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
82 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
83 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
84 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
85 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
86 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
87 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
88 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
89 documentation.
90 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
91 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
92 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
93 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
94 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
95 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
96 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
97
98 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
99 -------------------------------------
100
101 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
102 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
103 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
104 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
105 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
106 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
107 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
108 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
109 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
110
111 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
112 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
113 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
114
115 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
116 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
117 fails with a function like the following:
118
119 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
120 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
121 return fieldValue;
122 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
123 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
124 } else {
125 return fieldValue;
126 }
127 }
128
129 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
130 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
131 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
132 used from Konqueror.
133
134 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
135 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
136 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
137 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
138 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
139 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
140 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
141 browser.
142
143 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
144 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
145 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
146 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
147 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
148 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
149 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
150
151 Choosing an element-path:
152
153 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
154 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
155 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
156 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
157 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
158 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
159 element specified in the template:element attribute.
160
161 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
162
163 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
164 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
165 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
166 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
167 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
168 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
169
170 Stable element ordering and element-path:
171
172 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
173 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
174 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
175 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
176 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
177 positions in the document. For example:
178
179 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
180 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
181 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
182 </item>
183
184 In-page update...
185
186 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
187
188 Notes on XSL
189 ------------
190
191 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
192 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
193 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
194 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
195
196 Release Procedures
197 ------------------
198
199 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
200 attributes.
201 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
202 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
203 Update the release notes (see above).
204 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
205 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
206 changelog (and other files).
207 Tag, export.
208 Generate the API documentation.
209 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
210 Archive, upload.
211 Upload the introductory documentation.
212 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
213
214 Generating the API Documentation
215 --------------------------------
216
217 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
218 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
219 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
220 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
221
222 ./tools/apidocs.sh
223
224 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
225 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
226
227 Making Packages
228 ---------------
229
230 To make Debian-based packages:
231
232 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
233 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
234 Debian tools happy:
235
236 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
237
238 3. Run the package builder:
239
240 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
241
242 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
243 distribution's root directory.