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 0.3.2
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 * Introduced dynamic parameter evaluation for multiple-choice fields in
50 order to support sources of multiple-choice values which reside in the
51 form data document itself.
52 * Added the FixNamespace.xsl stylesheet to correct documents saved by HTML
53 editors which strip namespace prefixes.
54
55 New in XSLTools 0.3.1 (Changes since XSLTools 0.3)
56 --------------------------------------------------
57
58 * Fixed copyright and licensing information.
59
60 New in XSLTools 0.3 (Changes since XSLTools 0.2)
61 ------------------------------------------------
62
63 * Introduced copying of multiple-choice value element contents so that
64 option element labels can differ from the underlying values.
65 * Added internationalisation support, providing the template:i18n annotation
66 and the template:i18n extension function.
67 * Updated the documentation to cover the above new features.
68 * Fixed non-GET/POST request method handling in WebResources.
69 * Added the xslform_preparemacro.py script.
70 * Added an experimental template:range extension function.
71
72 New in XSLTools 0.2 (Changes since XSLTools 0.1)
73 ------------------------------------------------
74
75 * Made a new XSLTools package and moved XSLOutput into it.
76 * Improved serialisation of transformation results so that output options
77 are observed (in some cases, at least).
78 * Fixed stylesheet and reference document paths so that libxslt should not
79 now become confused by ambiguous relative paths.
80 * Added expression parameters to XSLOutput.Processor so that in-document
81 data can be used to, for example, initialise multiple-choice field values.
82 * Added input/initialiser support so that input documents can be tidied or
83 initialised using information from the template.
84 * Added template:init for use with template:element in XSLForms to control
85 element initialisation where necessary.
86 * Added special high-level "macro" attributes (eg. template:attribute-field)
87 which should make templates easier to write and maintain.
88 * Added template:if to XSLForms, providing conditional output of annotated
89 elements.
90 * Added set_document to XSLForms.Fields.Form.
91 * Added prepare_parameters to the XSLFormsResource class in the
92 XSLForms.Resources.WebResources module.
93 * Added element-path, url-encode and choice XSLForms extension functions.
94 * Improved Unicode support in the XSLForms extension functions.
95 * Changed in-page requests to contain proper POST data.
96 * Fixed checkbox and radiobutton value detection in XSLForms.js.
97 * Updated the code to work with WebStack 1.0 changes and adopted the
98 new-style WebStack demonstration mechanism.
99 * Added XMLCalendar and XMLTable (to the XSLTools package).
100 * Added a dictionary (or word lookup) example application.
101 * Added a job candidate profile (or CV editor) example application.
102 * Added a template attribute reference and an XSLFormsResource guide to the
103 documentation.
104 * Added Debian package support (specifically Ubuntu package support).
105 * Added missing COPYING.txt file.
106 * Renamed the scripts to avoid naming issues in system-wide installations.
107 * Added a PyQt example based on the system configurator example, with the
108 form prepared in Qt Designer. This example runs in PyQt and in a Web
109 environment without any changes to the application code. In-page updates
110 are currently not implemented in the Web version, however.
111
112 Notes on In-Page Update Functionality
113 -------------------------------------
114
115 Special note #1: Konqueror seems in certain cases to remember replaced form
116 content (when replaceChild is used to replace regions of the page which
117 include form elements). This causes the browser to believe that more form
118 fields exist on the page than actually do so, and subsequent form submissions
119 thus include the values of such removed fields. A special hack is in place to
120 disable form fields by changing their names, thus causing Konqueror to not
121 associate such fields with the real, active fields; this hack does not seem to
122 cause problems for Mozilla. This needs some investigation to determine in
123 exactly which circumstances the problem arises.
124
125 Special note #2: Konqueror also seems to crash if asked to find elements using
126 an empty 'id' attribute string. This needs some investigation to see if it
127 really is the getElementById call that causes the crash.
128
129 Special note #3: Konqueror's XMLHttpRequest seems to append null characters to
130 the end of field values. Attempting to prune them before the request is sent
131 fails with a function like the following:
132
133 function fixValue(fieldValue) {
134 if (fieldValue.length == 0) {
135 return fieldValue;
136 } else if (fieldValue[fieldValue.length - 1] == '\0') {
137 return fieldValue.substr(0, fieldValue.length - 1);
138 } else {
139 return fieldValue;
140 }
141 }
142
143 This may be because it is the entire message that is terminated with the null
144 character, and that this happens only upon sending the message. Consequently,
145 some frameworks (notably mod_python) do not support in-page functionality when
146 used from Konqueror.
147
148 Various browsers (eg. Mozilla/Firefox, Konqueror) will not allow the
149 XMLHttpRequest in-page updates to function unless the URL used in the
150 requestUpdate JavaScript function is compatible with the URL at which the
151 browser finds the application. Currently, relative URLs are in use to avoid
152 this issue of compatibility, but should an absolute URL be deduced using the
153 WebStack API and then used, it may be possible that the values returned by
154 that API do not match the actual addresses entered into the address bar of the
155 browser.
156
157 To check the behaviour of the applications, it is possible to view the
158 document source of the pages served by applications and to verify that the
159 URLs mentioned in the JavaScript function calls (to 'requestUpdate') either be
160 a relative link or involve a URL similar to that which appears in the
161 browser's address bar. In some environments, the use of 'localhost' addresses
162 often confuses the browser and server; one workaround is to use real host
163 names or addresses instead of 'localhost'.
164
165 Choosing an element-path:
166
167 When specifying the "context" of the in-page update, one must imagine which
168 element the template fragment should operate within. If the template:id
169 attribute marks a particular section, then the element-path should be a path
170 to the applicable context element for that section in the complete template
171 document. Note that if a template:element attribute appears on the same
172 element as the template:id attribute then the element-path should refer to the
173 element specified in the template:element attribute.
174
175 Choosing where to put template:attribute, template:id and id:
176
177 When specifying the extent of a template fragment, one must be sure not to put
178 the template:id attribute on the same element as a template:attribute
179 annotation; otherwise, the generated code will be improperly extracted as a
180 fragment producing two versions of the element - one for when the specified
181 attribute is present, and one for when it is not present. Generally,
182 template:id and id can be placed on the same node, however.
183
184 Stable element ordering and element-path:
185
186 Within the element-path, the numbering of the elements will start at 1.
187 Therefore it is vital to choose a region of the form data structure with the
188 element-path which is isolated from surrounding elements whose positions would
189 otherwise be dependent on a stable ordering of elements, and whose processing
190 would be disrupted if some new elements suddenly appeared claiming the same
191 positions in the document. For example:
192
193 <item value=""> .../item$1/value
194 <type value=""/> .../item$1/type$1/value
195 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$2/value
196 </item>
197
198 In-page update...
199
200 <comment value=""/> .../item$1/comment$1/value
201
202 Notes on XSL
203 ------------
204
205 libxslt seems to be quite liberal on the definition of runtime parameters, in
206 that there is no apparent need to explicitly declare the corresponding global
207 variables in stylesheets. Whilst this is nice, we may eventually need to
208 detect such variables and add them in the preparation process.
209
210 Release Procedures
211 ------------------
212
213 Update the XSLTools/__init__.py and XSLForms/__init__.py __version__
214 attributes.
215 Change the version number and package filename/directory in the documentation.
216 Change code examples in the documentation if appropriate.
217 Update the release notes (see above).
218 Check the setup.py file and ensure that all package directories are mentioned.
219 Check the release information in the PKG-INFO file and in the package
220 changelog (and other files).
221 Tag, export.
222 Generate the API documentation.
223 Remove generated .pyc files: rm `find . -name "*.pyc"`
224 Archive, upload.
225 Upload the introductory documentation.
226 Update PyPI, PythonInfo Wiki, Vaults of Parnassus entries.
227
228 Generating the API Documentation
229 --------------------------------
230
231 In order to prepare the API documentation, it is necessary to generate some
232 Web pages from the Python source code. For this, the epydoc application must
233 be available on your system. Then, inside the distribution directory, run the
234 apidocs.sh tool script as follows:
235
236 ./tools/apidocs.sh
237
238 Some warnings may be generated by the script, but the result should be a new
239 apidocs directory within the distribution directory.
240
241 Making Packages
242 ---------------
243
244 To make Debian-based packages:
245
246 1. Create new package directories under packages if necessary.
247 2. Make a symbolic link in the distribution's root directory to keep the
248 Debian tools happy:
249
250 ln -s packages/ubuntu-hoary/python2.4-xsltools/debian/
251
252 3. Run the package builder:
253
254 dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
255
256 4. Locate and tidy up the packages in the parent directory of the
257 distribution's root directory.