discuss: TARPL news 2005 week 28
Subject:
TARPL news 2005 week 28
From:
Stein Gjoen ####@####.####
Date:
15 Jul 2005 22:42:11 -0000
Message-Id: <42D83B02.6070607@mail.nyx.net>
Hello,
Getting startet is quick but delivering tested, verified and validated
software takes longer which is why there has been little news from me
recently. There is also the small matter of nice summer weather outside.
I am pleased to announce the new generation LDP HOWTO Generator.
http://www.nyx.net/~sgjoen/tarpl.html#tarpl-howtogen-ng
which is intended to replace the old generator.
From the web site:
-----
The report by Gerd Berget identified several potentials for improvement on
organising the HOWTO collection and some of this has a definite impact on
the HOWTO Generator too which lead to the development of The LDP HOWTO
Generator NG. Some of the improvements are
* New set of categories
* Ability of entering up to 3 categories per document
* Accessibility features
In addition the JavaScript code will be reworked into something more
elegant (or less embarassing) and use of CSS. In order to support low end
configurations and maximise the user base only a limited set of JavaScript
features will be used.
Code is now released for comments. Testing are positive in Mozilla 1.7.7,
Firefox 1.04, Opera 8.01 and Internet Explorer 6.0 SP2 and the toolchain
has been tested to end point.
Note that this is self contained; it is not necessary to connect to a web
server nor is it necessary to be on-line at all. Also the tool is validated
as valid HTML 4.01 Transitional and is using valid CSS
The Generator was tested using the WebXACT for quality, accessibility, and
privacy issues. While the quality checks out fine the accessibility issues
were not trivial. Much time and effort was spent attempting to gain
approvement and while there are no priority 1 errors there are a number of
errors and warnings that I could not fix without spending too much time
reworking the Generator. I hope the effort spent has improved usability and
accessibility. The privacy issues are strange. While the Generator does not
submit the contents of its forms the WebXACT believes it does so, twice. I
do not believe the issues raised are important but if anyone has a fix for
any of these feel free to contact me.
In line with recent trends this Generator now contains built in test useful
for regression testing. Pressing ALT-F or the button named Fill in fields
for self test all fields will be filled in using a predefined set of texts.
To avoid accidentally doing so the title field must be set to Selftester
(case sensitive). Compiling to LinuxDoc SGML is done by pressing ALT-C or
the button named Start Compiling the Form.
The extensive use of JavaScrip has made the Generator flexible. For
instance a total reworking of chapter titles, predefined texts or layout is
quite simple.
The tool is verified using the whole LinuxDoc SGML tool chain using
linuxdoc-tools (0.9.21). The generated SGML as well as the compiled HTML is
available for viewing.
-----
To make sure people can obtain the complete set of start files for their
LinuxDoc installation I have made a simple tar file with the most important
files (Generator, Templates and the related SGML, HTML and txt-files):
http://www.nyx.net/~sgjoen/LD_Pack.tar (ca. 220 KB)
Please have a look at these things and send in your comments.
Regards,
Stein Gjoen
