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 (0.4.6 recommended for XInclude support)
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 The example PyQt applications have been tested with PyQt 3.15.
55
56 New in XSLTools 0.6 (Changes since XSLTools 0.5)
57 ------------------------------------------------
58
59 * Added modular request handling methods to XSLFormsResource, altering some
60 of the examples to demonstrate the usage and overriding of these methods
61 in preference to overriding respond_to_form.
62 * Added methods to the Form class to support modular request handling.
63 * Added information about XSLT extension function usage to the advanced
64 template design document, linking to the housekeeping annotations section
65 of the template attribute reference guide.
66 * Observed changes in WebStack 1.3 and introduced default_charset usage in
67 the WebResources and PyQtWebResources modules.
68 * Added experimental OpenID support; improved the authentication resources
69 and mechanisms.
70 * Fixed the LoginResource to work correctly when detecting the protected
71 application's location.
72 * NOTE: Need to add persistence for OpenID associations.
73 * Added XInclude support in templates (requires libxml2dom 0.4.6 or later).
74
75 New in XSLTools 0.5 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.6)
76 --------------------------------------------------
77
78 * Renamed template:id to template:section in order to get around problems
79 and potential future problems with browsers (such as Konqueror 3.5.6)
80 which get confused loading documents with multiple id attributes, even if
81 only one is unprefixed. WARNING! This change is not backwards compatible.
82 * Added Ubuntu Feisty (7.04) package support.
83 * Tidied the documentation HTML.
84
85 New in XSLTools 0.4.6 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.5)
86 ----------------------------------------------------
87
88 * Improved the Login module, enabling the VerySimpleWithLogin example for
89 various frameworks.
90 * Relicensed under the LGPL version 3 or later.
91 * Upgraded to Sarissa 0.9.7.8 (compatible with LGPL/GPL version 3), removing
92 a test around DOMParser so that Konqueror 3.4.0 is still supported.
93
94 New in XSLTools 0.4.5 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.4)
95 ----------------------------------------------------
96
97 * Fixed the result of transformations in XSLOutput: proper document nodes
98 are now produced.
99 * Added an XSLForms.Resources.Login module which provides resources to
100 support login screens and redirects.
101 * Fixed newlines in the attributes created from fields in XSLForms: CR
102 characters are no longer included since this caused the doubling up of
103 newlines in Firefox.
104
105 New in XSLTools 0.4.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.3)
106 ----------------------------------------------------
107
108 * Fixed translation selection for the template:i18n annotation attribute,
109 not just for the template:i18n extension function - more apologies for
110 resulting output changes!
111 * Improved the template fixing stylesheet and added some documentation for
112 the script and the related expr-prefix attribute.
113 * Introduced WebStack 1.2.2 EncodingSelector and encoding changes.
114 * Added docstring and return value for the write_month_to_document function
115 in XSLTools.XMLCalendar.
116
117 New in XSLTools 0.4.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.2)
118 ----------------------------------------------------
119
120 * Fixed translation selection when an unsupported locale is specified,
121 choosing the first locale as the default (rather than exposing the values
122 themselves as translations). Note that this is an unfortunate and subtle
123 change which may affect application output - apologies are hereby offered!
124
125 New in XSLTools 0.4.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4.1)
126 ----------------------------------------------------
127
128 * Added a content type check in the XSLFormsResource class, permitting
129 non-form-based resources to access the raw request data, rather than have
130 the data processed unsuccessfully and consequently discarded.
131 * Added a script and a function to fix template namespaces after editing in
132 a careless editor.
133 * Changed libxml2mod and libxsltmod import details to try libxmlmods -
134 suggested by Lucian Wischik for libxml2dom.
135
136 New in XSLTools 0.4.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.4)
137 --------------------------------------------------
138
139 * Made translations specified using the template:i18n annotation take
140 priority over template:value annotations.
141 * Added expression-based template:i18n annotations, and provided fallback
142 output for such translations based on the value of the evaluated
143 expression.
144
145 New in XSLTools 0.4 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3.1)
146 --------------------------------------------------
147
148 * Changed the preparation of templates to produce rule-based output
149 stylesheets, thus permitting recursive templates. This requires an extra
150 expr-prefix annotation to be used in certain kinds of templates.
151 * Added a recursive template example application.
152 * Changed fragment production to use original template documents instead of
153 output stylesheets.
154 * Changed the in_page_resources attribute to provide the output identifier,
155 thus changing the prepare_fragment method in Web resources so that only
156 the fragment identifier needs to be supplied.
157 * Added the XSLForms.Resources.WebResources.prepare_resources method for the
158 preparation of initialiser and output stylesheets before an application is
159 run.
160 * Changed selectors to not automatically create elements in the form data
161 document unless requested to do so. Introduced a Form.get_selector
162 method in XSLForms.Fields.
163 * Permitted the creation of hierarchies of elements in
164 XSLForms.Utils.add_elements.
165 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
166 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
167 form data document itself.
168 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
169 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
170 * Fixed filesystem encoding issues in the Candidate example; fixed language
171 preference access in the Configurator and VerySimple examples.
172 * Changed the BaseHTTPRequestHandler version of the Candidate example to
173 store data in a subdirectory of the current working directory, thus
174 allowing the demonstration application to work after package installation.
175
176 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
177 --------------------------------------------------
178
179 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
180
181 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
182 ------------------------------------------------
183
184 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
185 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
186 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
187 and the template:i18n extension function.
188 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
189 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
190 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
191 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
192
193 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
194 ------------------------------------------------
195
196 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
197 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
198 are observed (in some cases, at least).
199 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
200 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
201 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
202 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
203 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
204 initialised using information from the template.
205 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
206 element initialisation where necessary.
207 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
208 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
209 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
210 elements.
211 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
212 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
213 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
214 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
215 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
216 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
217 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
218 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
219 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
220 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
221 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
222 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
223 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
224 documentation.
225 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
226 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
227 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
228 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
229 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
230 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
231 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
232
233 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
234 -------------------------------------
235
236 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
237 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
238 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
239 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
240 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
241 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
242 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
243 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
244 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
245
246 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
247 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
248 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
249
250 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
251 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
252 fails with a function like the following:
253
254 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
255 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
256 return fieldValue;
257 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
258 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
259 } else {
260 return fieldValue;
261 }
262 }
263
264 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
265 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
266 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
267 used from Konqueror.
268
269 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
270 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
271 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
272 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
273 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
274 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
275 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
276 browser.
277
278 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
279 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
280 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
281 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
282 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
283 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
284 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
285
286 Choosing an element-path:
287
288 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
289 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:section
290 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
291 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
292 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
293 element as the template:section attribute then the element-path should refer
294 to the element specified in the template:element attribute.
295
296 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:section and id:
297
298 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
299 the template:section attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
300 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
301 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
302 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
303 template:section and id can be placed on the same node, however.
304
305 Stable element ordering and element-path:
306
307 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
308 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
309 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
310 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
311 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
312 positions in the document. For example:
313
314 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
315 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
316 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
317 </item>
318
319 In-page update...
320
321 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
322
323 Notes on XSL
324 ------------
325
326 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
327 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
328 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
329 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
330
331 Release Procedures
332 ------------------
333
334 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
335 attributes.
336 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
337 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
338 Update the release notes (see above).
339 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
340 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
341 changelog (and other files).
342 Tag, export.
343 Generate the example resources.
344 Generate the API documentation.
345 Remove generated .pyc files: find . -name "*.pyc" | xargs rm
346 Archive, upload.
347 Upload the introductory documentation.
348 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
349
350 Generating the Example Resources
351 --------------------------------
352
353 In order to prepare the example resources, the prepare_demo.py script must be
354 run as follows:
355
356 python tools/prepare_demo.py
357
358 This will ensure that all initialiser and output stylesheets are created and
359 are thus installed by packages.
360
361 Generating the API Documentation
362 --------------------------------
363
364 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
365 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
366 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
367 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
368
369 ./tools/apidocs.sh
370
371 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
372 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
373
374 Making Packages
375 ---------------
376
377 To make Debian-based packages:
378
379 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
380 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
381 Debian tools happy. Try one of the following:
382
383 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
384 ln -s packages/ubuntu-feisty/python-xsltools/debian/
385
386 3. Run the package builder:
387
388 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
389
390 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
391 distribution's root directory.