# HG changeset patch # User paulb # Date 1121541913 0 # Node ID debf541a8a13d8081f611b4f76d2dba26a791b51 # Parent cc2a24baff916fc58e1fed2ec4179d689f26a558 [project @ 2005-07-16 19:25:13 by paulb] Added introductory documentation, moving the overview into its own HTML document. diff -r cc2a24baff91 -r debf541a8a13 docs/index.html --- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/docs/index.html Sat Jul 16 19:25:13 2005 +0000 @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ + + + + + Developing Web Applications with XSLTools + + + + +

Developing Web Applications with XSLTools

+

This documentation introduces the XSLTools package and the XSLForms +framework for developing forms-based Web applications using Python, libxml2dom, +libxml2, libxslt and (optionally) WebStack.

+

Setting Up

+

First of all, let us assume that the XSLTools distribution has been +unpacked and now sits in the XSLTools-0.1 directory.

+

Before we begin, we must make sure that the XSLTools package is +available +to Python. The easiest way to do this is to change into the XSLTools-0.1 +directory and to run the setup.py +script provided with the version of Python you are going to be using +(possibly as a privileged user like root):

+
cd XSLTools-0.1
python setup.py install
+

If you don't want to install XSLTools in this way, or if you can't +do so +because you don't have root privileges, you can just make +sure +that the XSLTools-0.1 directory sits on your +PYTHONPATH.

+

Viewing the API Documentation

+

The API documentation for use in conjunction with this +guide can be found inside the apidocs +directory within the XSLTools-0.1 directory. Of course, +it is always possible to view the API documentation +within Python by importing modules (such as XSLOutput) +and using Python's built-in help function.

+ + diff -r cc2a24baff91 -r debf541a8a13 docs/overview.html --- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/docs/overview.html Sat Jul 16 19:25:13 2005 +0000 @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ + + + + + Creating Applications: An Overview + + + + +

Creating Applications: An Overview

+

The following steps briefly describe how to make a new application:
+

+
    +
  1. Design a template, adding forms and fields. In the beginning, it +is not that important to use the correct names in each of the fields - +these will be added later.
    2. +
  2. Add structural template attributes such as template:element, +template:attribute and template:value so that the fields sit in +different parts of the input document format being modelled. Replace +the field names with special functions such as template:field-name(). +For buttons which add and remove parts of the input document, employ +selector notation and the template:this-position() function.
    3. +
  3. Where multiple choice fields are employed, input documents must +be transformed so that the multiple choice options are included in the +output. This can be achieved using documents containing the different +option values and transformations which insert those values into the +input document.
    4. +
  4. To produce the output document, the template needs preparing +first so that an output stylesheet is produced; then, the output +stylesheet is applied to the processed input document utilising various +extension functions which produce the computed field names in the final +output document.
    5. +
+

Recommendations

+
    +
  1. Where multiple fields exist and can be added and removed, put +them inside a separate element so that the selectors can successfully +identify them. Otherwise, changing element orders can result in the +wrong element being selected.
    2. +
  2. Make sure that transformations on the input document produce all +the necessary elements for the output document so that the resulting +page gives the user the opportunity to specify data that is missing.
    3. +
+ +