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