From rosco at roscopeco.co.uk Tue Dec 13 09:04:37 2005 From: rosco at roscopeco.co.uk (Ross Bamford) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:04:37 -0000 Subject: [webgen-users] Features for next webgen release [comp.lang.ruby] Message-ID: Hi, Thought I'd reply on the Webgen list, hope that's okay. I'm gradually putting together my personal website with Webgen when I get time to do it properly (not got much beyond planning yet though) but I did have a couple of things on my wish-list already ;) On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:50:08 -0000, Thomas Leitner wrote [in comp.lang.ruby]: > I'm currently gathering ideas for new features for the next big webgen > release (0.4.0). Some of the planned features are: > > * RSS feed generation (proposed by Friz Heinrichmeyer) That would be very nice - I'm planning a blog-ish section and a photo album that I'd like to generate RSS from :) > * blog module (proposed by Fritz Heinrichmeyer) (Maybe this overlaps with what I propose below? I'd love to know more about it). > * template inheritance (page uses template 1 which uses template 2...) Is this nested layout, i.e. I could have a layout with three columns, and in column 2 is another laid-out page (say, three rows), and in the middle of that is the actual requested page? If so, then that would be really useful. > * multiple file handler for one source file I'm not sure if I've just not found the right way to do this yet, but I'd like to be able to generate multiple views from a page. I don't really know how it could work, but it would be nice to be able to automate having certain pages output to multiple formats, maybe even including PDF. > * GUI application for managing a Web site I wonder if, instead of building a GUI application, you could instead find some way to integrate with the blog packages already out there? I don't know a lot about the technologies involved, but maybe you could implement something like the metaweblog API (on webrick or something). I've always used BloGTK for my blogs, and I'm hoping to replace my (dumped) blogs with a small blog-like section on the site - it would be really cool if I could use my blog package like that. I appreciate it may seem overkill to implement a whole weblog API locally for this, but I don't know - something that's worth considering maybe... > * XML::Builder intergration for generating HTML output > We are considering similar for Rote (but probably for plain XML mainly), as well as a similar CSS thing[1]. Maybe it could be useful in webgen...? Anyway, just some ideas... :) Cheers, Ross (p.s. Good work on Webgen - it's excellent, so thanks :)) [1] http://lunchroom.lunchboxsoftware.com/articles/2005/08/19/rcss-anyone -- Ross Bamford - rosco at roscopeco.co.uk From t_leitner at gmx.at Tue Dec 13 10:16:27 2005 From: t_leitner at gmx.at (Thomas Leitner) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:16:27 +0100 Subject: [webgen-users] Features for next webgen release Message-ID: <20051213161627.51759ae5@localhost> | Ross Bamford wrote: | | On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:50:08 -0000, Thomas Leitner wrote [in comp.lang.ruby]: | | > I'm currently gathering ideas for new features for the next big | > webgen release (0.4.0). Some of the planned features are: | > | > * RSS feed generation (proposed by Friz Heinrichmeyer) | | That would be very nice - I'm planning a blog-ish section and a photo | album that I'd like to generate RSS from :) | | > * blog module (proposed by Fritz Heinrichmeyer) | | (Maybe this overlaps with what I propose below? I'd love to know more | about it). Fritz Heinrichmeyer has already implemented a RSS and a blog module. However, I didn't have the time to adapt and include them in webgen. | | > * template inheritance (page uses template 1 which uses template | > 2...) | | Is this nested layout, i.e. I could have a layout with three columns, | and in column 2 is another laid-out page (say, three rows), and in | the middle of that is the actual requested page? If so, then that | would be really useful. Yes, nested layout. For example, you have a website which holds the documentation for some projects. You specify a general website template file and the normal pages use this template. Additionally, you can specify sub-templates for each project and the project files use the sub-templates which use the general website template. | > * multiple file handler for one source file | | I'm not sure if I've just not found the right way to do this yet, but | I'd like to be able to generate multiple views from a page. I don't | really know how it could work, but it would be nice to be able to | automate having certain pages output to multiple formats, maybe even | including PDF. Thats exactly what this will be for! I stumbled across this when I implemented the source tag for the webgen homepage. With this feature implemented, one source file can be handled by multiple file handlers. For example, one handler could generate an HTML file, another one a PDF file and third just copies the source file directly to the output directory. | > * GUI application for managing a Web site | | I wonder if, instead of building a GUI application, you could instead | find some way to integrate with the blog packages already out there? | I don't know a lot about the technologies involved, but maybe you | could implement something like the metaweblog API (on webrick or | something). I've always used BloGTK for my blogs, and I'm hoping to | replace my (dumped) blogs with a small blog-like section on the site | - it would be really cool if I could use my blog package like that. | | I appreciate it may seem overkill to implement a whole weblog API | locally for this, but I don't know - something that's worth | considering maybe... I have thought about that, too, but I did not have the time to look through the metaweblog API. | > * XML::Builder intergration for generating HTML output | > | | We are considering similar for Rote (but probably for plain XML | mainly), as well as a similar CSS thing[1]. Maybe it could be useful | in webgen...? Yes, I think so. As I do not know when I have time to implement all the features for the next version of webgen, it is very likely that you have an implementation of this earlier :-) | (p.s. Good work on Webgen - it's excellent, so thanks :)) Thanks! Bye, Thomas -- |\ Thomas Leitner -- thomas [underscore] leitner [at] gmx [dot] at |> |/ "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" From rosco at roscopeco.co.uk Tue Dec 13 11:20:48 2005 From: rosco at roscopeco.co.uk (Ross Bamford) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:20:48 -0000 Subject: [webgen-users] Features for next webgen release In-Reply-To: <20051213161627.51759ae5@localhost> References: <20051213161627.51759ae5@localhost> Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 15:16:27 -0000, Thomas Leitner wrote: > | Ross Bamford wrote: > | > | On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:50:08 -0000, Thomas Leitner | gmx.at> wrote [in comp.lang.ruby]: > | > | > * template inheritance (page uses template 1 which uses template > | > 2...) > | > | Is this nested layout, [...] If so, then that > | would be really useful. > > Yes, nested layout. For example, you have a website which > holds the documentation for some projects. You specify a general website > template file and the normal pages use this template. Additionally, you > can specify sub-templates for each project and the project files use the > sub-templates which use the general website template. > Great! I want to have things set up as several 'mini sites' but as part of a common whole and by the sounds of it this will make that easy :) > | > * multiple file handler for one source file > | > | I'm not sure if I've just not found the right way to do this yet, but > | I'd like to be able to generate multiple views from a page. I don't > | really know how it could work, but it would be nice to be able to > | automate having certain pages output to multiple formats, maybe even > | including PDF. > > Thats exactly what this will be for! [...] > For example, one handler could generate an HTML file, > another one a PDF file and third just copies the source file directly to > the output directory. > Brilliant, I like to be able to offer the different formats for certain things. Are you planning to build PDF support in directly, or just allow it via a handler? > > | > * XML::Builder intergration for generating HTML output > | > > | > | We are considering similar for Rote (but probably for plain XML > | mainly), as well as a similar CSS thing[1]. Maybe it could be useful > | in webgen...? > > Yes, I think so. As I do not know when I have time to implement all the > features for the next version of webgen, it is very likely that you > have an implementation of this earlier :-) > :) At the moment I'm not even sure if we'll be doing it, but in any event I don't think we're competing anyway ;) We've already started moving more toward specific software doc features and will be removing the command-line build in the next version. It was driven by something I wanted on my site, and webgen is more suited to the kind of stuff I'm hoping to do there anyway. Thanks, Ross -- Ross Bamford - rosco at roscopeco.co.uk From t_leitner at gmx.at Wed Dec 14 04:54:00 2005 From: t_leitner at gmx.at (Thomas Leitner) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 10:54:00 +0100 Subject: [webgen-users] Features for next webgen release In-Reply-To: References: <20051213161627.51759ae5@localhost> Message-ID: <20051214105400.24ac66e4@localhost> | > | > * multiple file handler for one source file | | [SNIP] | | Brilliant, I like to be able to offer the different formats for | certain things. Are you planning to build PDF support in directly, | or just allow it via a handler? What do you mean by "build PDF support in directly"? I plan to use PDF::Writer or an external tool which supports converting HTML into PDF. Bye, Thomas -- |\ Thomas Leitner -- thomas [underscore] leitner [at] gmx [dot] at |> |/ "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" From rosco at roscopeco.co.uk Wed Dec 14 08:34:28 2005 From: rosco at roscopeco.co.uk (Ross Bamford) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 13:34:28 -0000 Subject: [webgen-users] Features for next webgen release In-Reply-To: <20051214105400.24ac66e4@localhost> References: <20051213161627.51759ae5@localhost> <20051214105400.24ac66e4@localhost> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 09:54:00 -0000, Thomas Leitner wrote: > | > | > * multiple file handler for one source file > | > | [SNIP] > | > | Brilliant, I like to be able to offer the different formats for > | certain things. Are you planning to build PDF support in directly, > | or just allow it via a handler? > > What do you mean by "build PDF support in directly"? I plan to use > PDF::Writer or an external tool which supports converting HTML into PDF. > Yes, sorry, that's what I meant, whether you'll integrate a solution to output PDF, or just provide the ability for users to integrate it themselves. I'm pretty lazy really so out of the box sounds good to me :) Cheers, Ross -- Ross Bamford - rosco at roscopeco.remove.co.uk