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 0.4.3
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 1.2.3 or later).
54 The example PyQt applications have been tested with PyQt 3.15.
55
56 New in XSLTools 0.5.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.5)
57 --------------------------------------------------
58
59 * Added information about XSLT extension function usage to the advanced
60 template design document, linking to the housekeeping annotations section
61 of the template attribute reference guide.
62
63 New in XSLTools 0.5 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.6)
64 --------------------------------------------------
65
66 * Renamed template:id to template:section in order to get around problems
67 and potential future problems with browsers (such as Konqueror 3.5.6)
68 which get confused loading documents with multiple id attributes, even if
69 only one is unprefixed. WARNING! This change is not backwards compatible.
70 * Added Ubuntu Feisty (7.04) package support.
71 * Tidied the documentation HTML.
72
73 New in XSLTools 0.4.6 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.5)
74 ----------------------------------------------------
75
76 * Improved the Login module, enabling the VerySimpleWithLogin example for
77 various frameworks.
78 * Relicensed under the LGPL version 3 or later.
79 * Upgraded to Sarissa 0.9.7.8 (compatible with LGPL/GPL version 3), removing
80 a test around DOMParser so that Konqueror 3.4.0 is still supported.
81
82 New in XSLTools 0.4.5 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.4)
83 ----------------------------------------------------
84
85 * Fixed the result of transformations in XSLOutput: proper document nodes
86 are now produced.
87 * Added an XSLForms.Resources.Login module which provides resources to
88 support login screens and redirects.
89 * Fixed newlines in the attributes created from fields in XSLForms: CR
90 characters are no longer included since this caused the doubling up of
91 newlines in Firefox.
92
93 New in XSLTools 0.4.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.3)
94 ----------------------------------------------------
95
96 * Fixed translation selection for the template:i18n annotation attribute,
97 not just for the template:i18n extension function - more apologies for
98 resulting output changes!
99 * Improved the template fixing stylesheet and added some documentation for
100 the script and the related expr-prefix attribute.
101 * Introduced WebStack 1.2.2 EncodingSelector and encoding changes.
102 * Added docstring and return value for the write_month_to_document function
103 in XSLTools.XMLCalendar.
104
105 New in XSLTools 0.4.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.2)
106 ----------------------------------------------------
107
108 * Fixed translation selection when an unsupported locale is specified,
109 choosing the first locale as the default (rather than exposing the values
110 themselves as translations). Note that this is an unfortunate and subtle
111 change which may affect application output - apologies are hereby offered!
112
113 New in XSLTools 0.4.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.1)
114 ----------------------------------------------------
115
116 * Added a content type check in the XSLFormsResource class, permitting
117 non-form-based resources to access the raw request data, rather than have
118 the data processed unsuccessfully and consequently discarded.
119 * Added a script and a function to fix template namespaces after editing in
120 a careless editor.
121 * Changed libxml2mod and libxsltmod import details to try libxmlmods -
122 suggested by Lucian Wischik for libxml2dom.
123
124 New in XSLTools 0.4.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4)
125 --------------------------------------------------
126
127 * Made translations specified using the template:i18n annotation take
128 priority over template:value annotations.
129 * Added expression-based template:i18n annotations, and provided fallback
130 output for such translations based on the value of the evaluated
131 expression.
132
133 New in XSLTools 0.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3.1)
134 --------------------------------------------------
135
136 * Changed the preparation of templates to produce rule-based output
137 stylesheets, thus permitting recursive templates. This requires an extra
138 expr-prefix annotation to be used in certain kinds of templates.
139 * Added a recursive template example application.
140 * Changed fragment production to use original template documents instead of
141 output stylesheets.
142 * Changed the in_page_resources attribute to provide the output identifier,
143 thus changing the prepare_fragment method in Web resources so that only
144 the fragment identifier needs to be supplied.
145 * Added the XSLForms.Resources.WebResources.prepare_resources method for the
146 preparation of initialiser and output stylesheets before an application is
147 run.
148 * Changed selectors to not automatically create elements in the form data
149 document unless requested to do so. Introduced a Form.get_selector
150 method in XSLForms.Fields.
151 * Permitted the creation of hierarchies of elements in
152 XSLForms.Utils.add_elements.
153 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
154 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
155 form data document itself.
156 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
157 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
158 * Fixed filesystem encoding issues in the Candidate example; fixed language
159 preference access in the Configurator and VerySimple examples.
160 * Changed the BaseHTTPRequestHandler version of the Candidate example to
161 store data in a subdirectory of the current working directory, thus
162 allowing the demonstration application to work after package installation.
163
164 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
165 --------------------------------------------------
166
167 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
168
169 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
170 ------------------------------------------------
171
172 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
173 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
174 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
175 and the template:i18n extension function.
176 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
177 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
178 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
179 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
180
181 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
182 ------------------------------------------------
183
184 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
185 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
186 are observed (in some cases, at least).
187 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
188 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
189 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
190 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
191 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
192 initialised using information from the template.
193 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
194 element initialisation where necessary.
195 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
196 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
197 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
198 elements.
199 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
200 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
201 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
202 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
203 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
204 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
205 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
206 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
207 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
208 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
209 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
210 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
211 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
212 documentation.
213 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
214 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
215 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
216 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
217 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
218 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
219 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
220
221 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
222 -------------------------------------
223
224 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
225 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
226 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
227 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
228 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
229 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
230 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
231 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
232 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
233
234 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
235 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
236 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
237
238 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
239 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
240 fails with a function like the following:
241
242 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
243 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
244 return fieldValue;
245 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
246 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
247 } else {
248 return fieldValue;
249 }
250 }
251
252 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
253 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
254 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
255 used from Konqueror.
256
257 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
258 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
259 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
260 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
261 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
262 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
263 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
264 browser.
265
266 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
267 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
268 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
269 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
270 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
271 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
272 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
273
274 Choosing an element-path:
275
276 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
277 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
278 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
279 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
280 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
281 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
282 element specified in the template:element attribute.
283
284 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
285
286 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
287 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
288 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
289 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
290 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
291 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
292
293 Stable element ordering and element-path:
294
295 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
296 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
297 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
298 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
299 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
300 positions in the document. For example:
301
302 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
303 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
304 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
305 </item>
306
307 In-page update...
308
309 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
310
311 Notes on XSL
312 ------------
313
314 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
315 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
316 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
317 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
318
319 Release Procedures
320 ------------------
321
322 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
323 attributes.
324 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
325 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
326 Update the release notes (see above).
327 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
328 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
329 changelog (and other files).
330 Tag, export.
331 Generate the example resources.
332 Generate the API documentation.
333 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
334 Archive, upload.
335 Upload the introductory documentation.
336 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
337
338 Generating the Example Resources
339 --------------------------------
340
341 In order to prepare the example resources, the prepare_demo.py script must be
342 run as follows:
343
344 python tools/prepare_demo.py
345
346 This will ensure that all initialiser and output stylesheets are created and
347 are thus installed by packages.
348
349 Generating the API Documentation
350 --------------------------------
351
352 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
353 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
354 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
355 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
356
357 ./tools/apidocs.sh
358
359 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
360 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
361
362 Making Packages
363 ---------------
364
365 To make Debian-based packages:
366
367 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
368 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
369 Debian tools happy:
370
371 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
372
373 3. Run the package builder:
374
375 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
376
377 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
378 distribution's root directory.