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Hi all, |
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|
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This report is slightly overdue because I thought that I should |
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complete some small tid-bits and include them here as well. I have |
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been writing this report for two days now, adding stuff as I am done |
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with it. |
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|
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1. Starting of the last week was very frustrating as I was compiling |
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an XSL for GuideXML to HTML transformation which took up a lot of |
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time. Gentoo repository does have an XSL (very detailed!) written by |
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nesyx but that wouldn't serve the editing purpose that we need. So I |
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crafted a new one which is more concise and includes 95% of the |
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GuideXML formatting (so far and evolving as I go along). An even |
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bigger nightmare was making the reverse XSL, i.e. HTML to GuideXML. I |
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have the structure completed and only need to fill in the blanks along |
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the way. Seeing the XSLT was quite rewarding considering the amount of |
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time it took. I even added support for anchors (chapter/section |
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numbering) for referencing other parts of the document using |
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hyperlinks. |
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|
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2. Next was my tryst with a Rich Text Editor. I tried many available |
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out there but none gave the flexibility needed. For instance I have to |
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handle the validity of GuideXML, not allowing certain tags inside |
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another, blah blah. So I went ahead and re-invented the wheel creating |
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GuideXML's own Rich Text Editor. Again I have the framework ready and |
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am just filling in the buttons so to speak. The Rich Text Editor |
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handles the creation of new chapters/sections along with re factoring |
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of their ids, i.e their chapter/section numbers. Hence if I insert a |
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new chapter then all chapter numbers will update accordingly. This was |
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done keeping in mind the DOM tree that I'll be making next which, you |
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guessed it, helps in focusing to a chapter/section immediately. |
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|
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Another thing I had to tackle was the user input. It is almost |
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impossible to completely prevent the user from inserting/creating |
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trash html in a rich text editor. So I am handling most of the user |
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inputs manually like overriding the default actions of the ENTER, DEL, |
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etc. keys. Also different browsers generate different HTML in an |
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editable area. So I have to make the reverse XSL very flexible. |
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|
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3. This was small work but I managed to get a database wrapper running |
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and completed a feature of auto-saving of files (like Gmail, |
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WordPress). These are not plugged in yet as the most vital link |
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between everything is the XSL. |
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|
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4. My domain name expired on 23rd and I was kinda lazy to renew it but |
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will be done by weekend hopefully. I shall put up a demo of almost |
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useable Beacon by then. You can even start editing your docs by then! |
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|
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Kind Regards |
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Nandeep Mali |
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-- |
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gentoo-soc@l.g.o mailing list |