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<h3>WHAT'S IT FOR?</h3>
<P>HTMLgen is a class library for the generation of HTML documents
with Python scripts. It's used when you want to create HTML
pages containing information which changes from time to
time. For example, you might want to have a page which provides
an overall system summary of data collected nightly. Or maybe
you have a catalog of data and images that you would like formed
into a spiffy set of web pages for the world to browse. Python
is a great scripting language for these tasks and with HTMLgen
it's very straightforward to construct objects which are rendered
out into consistently structured web pages. Of course, CGI
scripts written in Python can take advantage of these classes as
well.
<h3>ABOUT THIS RELEASE</h3>
<P>This is a minor release with a new module called NavLinks.py
and several bug fixes and modifications to allow HTMLgen to be
used with <a
href="http://www.python.org/jpython/">JPython</a>. <B>Note: This
version of HTMLgen REQUIRES Python 1.5 or later.</B>
<P>The NavLinks module provides tools by which a series of HTML
documents can be annotated with navigation links which page the
user through the files. Several styles of navigation aids are
included and new ones can be easily derived from the class
framework.
<P>The TemplateDocument scheme has been rewritten with the
addition of a new base class StringTemplate with
TemplateDocument and new classes AutoTemplateDocument and
AutoStringTemplate inheriting from it. The TemplateDocument
class provides a simple way of generating web pages based on a
template containing tags which are replaced at run time with
text of your choice. It uses a dictionary to provide the
substitution mapping. This class is only available with Python
1.5 or newer as it makes use of the re module and the new get
method on dictionaries.
<P>The release can be <a
href="http://starship.python.net/crew/friedrich/HTMLgen.tgz">downloaded</a>
from the Starship Web site.
<h3>ARCHITECTURE</h3>
<P>HTMLgen uses a simple model of having a separate class for each
HTML element type. Each class instance supports an __str__
method to emit itself as HTML text markup. A SimpleDocument class
provides the general container object which the user populates
with objects from the markup classes. The SeriesDocument class also
provides a general style template for page generation based on
Patrick Lynch's <a
href="http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/contents.html"> Web
Page Style Manual</a> at the Yale Center for Advanced
Instructional Media. See that page for more insights into the
design of good web pages.
<h3>NOTES ON NAMING</h3>
<P>The names I've selected for the classes in this module may need
some explaining. There is a class for each of the common HTML
elements and all classes use initial upper case for their
name. All functions are lower case. I did not choose to use all
caps for the classes that correspond to elements as A) HTML
markup isn't case sensitive anyway and B) I hate typing things
in all caps and C) I tend to use all-caps names to signify
constants. I also modified the class names to make them more
descriptive than the HTML standard. For example, I use Image
rather than IMG in hopes that the longer names will be easier
for the user to remember while coding the Python scripts. Also
there is no A class. I use the Href class to specify hyper-
references, (mostly because it's easier for me to remember). A
little odd case is the Paragraph vs. P classes. The former class
is used as a normal paragraph text container and uses the /P
token while the latter is simply used to insert a <P>
break in the output stream. Even though the class names might be
'Emphasis' rather than 'EM', I have provided aliases for these
classes so that if you insist, you can use the HTML names as the
class names.
<h3>DISTRIBUTION</h3>
<P>This release comes with a mini-web of pages generated with
the tool. The HTMLtest.py is the script used to build several
pages in the html subdirectory. It functions both as a test case
as well as usage examples. The reference manual output from
gendoc-0.6 is there as well. Input data is read from the data
directory and images used are all in the image directory. Once
untaring the files simply run the test function:
<pre>
>>> import HTMLtest
>>> HTMLtest.test()
wrote: "./html/overview.html"
wrote: "./html/document.html"
wrote: "./html/lists.html"
wrote: "./html/top-frames.html"
wrote: "./html/frames.html"
wrote: "./html/tables.html"
wrote: "./html/forms.html"
wrote: "./html/imagesmaps.html"
wrote: "./html/scripts.html"
wrote: "./html/independence.html"
wrote: "./html/parrot.html"
wrote: "./html/colorcube.html"
</pre>
<P>This should print the html files it generates as
above. Browse them (well you <em>ARE</em> browsing them now I
guess) to be sure things aren't hosed. The navigation buttons
should work, etc. After you are satisfied just place
HTMLgen.py* and HTMLcolors.py* into your PYTHONPATH (and any of
the other modules you want to use) and have fun.
<p>Comments are most welcome. <br> I've added a simple script
called <strong>colorcube.py</strong> which generates a
<a href="./colorcube.html">web-safe color table</a> useful for
selecting colors for your pages. Two additional sample pages are
available as well. They are accessed by clicking the "Next"
button on the last on-line doc page (Scripts). If you want to
jump to them directly you can click <A
HREF="./independence.html">here</a>.
<font size=-1>If you're curious about the insect at the bottom of each
page, that's my alma mater's mascot.</font>
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