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Re: Examples: WML Itself


In article <199712270946.EAA04184@plymouth.truespectra.com> you wrote:

>[...]
>> Just a few things I've discovered:

>> 1. The pages have 
>>    <body bgcolor="#000000" text=ffff60 link=00d0d0 vlink=00a0a0 alink=ff7070>
>>    First, as a side question, how can does be created with WML?
>>    WML (at least from 1.4.7 up) would create:

> I'm currently at 1.3 (not keeping up with every upgrade).  The definition
> of <tspage> is:

> [...]
> <body bgcolor=000000 text=ffff60 link=00d0d0 vlink=00a0a0
> alink=ff7070>
> [...]

> I found it odd that bgcolor was the only one to get quotes, but didn't
> consider it important enough to fix.  I'll just update the tag definition
> so that it generates sensible HTML.

Ok, thats fine. Alternatively you can just upgrade to WML 1.4.x ;_) BTW: For a
brief description of what 1.4.x provides against 1.3.x just read the NEWS file
on the WML webarea under News->NEWS. There are really a few interesting
enhancements like WMd, <protect>, etc. pp.

>[...]
> <linkto place="Products_PhotoGraphics">this is a link to photographics
> stuff</linkto>

> The stuff that does not link in this mannger is, for now, a pain to
> maintain.  Images are done with relative directories (images/foo.jpg).

>>    start with / only. Or even better: Use WML's auto-adustable path variables
>>    and let WML calculate the relative paths between each page. See the ``WML
>>    Itself'' pages and how I let WML calculate all URLs in the navbars via this
>>    approach.

> I'm not sure that I used this facility, not having seen it, but used
> something fairly similar.

Sure, but the auto-adjustable path variables already provide you with the
calculation of relative links without doing anything manually. So, when you
want to simplify it again ;_), use -DROOT~. in the .wmlrc of your "root-dir"
and then use $(ROOT)/relpath/foo/bar and these URLs automatically become .
../../ ../../, etc. prefixed.

>> 4. There are images like ``img
>>    src="http://www.truespectra.com/images/tsramp-mini.jpg" alt="TrueSpectra
>>    Home Page" border="0">''. Here I again wondering how this can survive WML,

> $DOCROOT + "images/tsramp-mini.jpg", located in wml::usr::ts.wml

> For some reason the defined-tag expansion occurred after the <img>
> width expansion?
> I certainly didn't use <img*>

The point is why there are no WIDTH/HEIGHT attributes added by WML? When I
pass the above to WML 1.4.x they get automatically added. Perhaps an already
fixed bug of 1.3.x...

>> That's an interesting file-system-based approach for a navbar.  Hmmmmm... if
>> you can limite the files that's fine this way.  But which feature for the
>> grammar-based wml::des::navbar would be required to let us create the same
>> with it? I just ask because there have to be a reason why you choose your
>> approach.  Perhaps I've missed some essential feature in wml::des::navbar
>> which restricts it too much in use? Just give a few hints. Thanks.  Or did you
>> start your work on the navbar before wml::des::navbar arrived?

> <thinks>

> In the man pages I've got for 1.3, navbar was documented as needing to be
> finished.  I was also somewhat obsessive about the presentation,

Ok, thats a reason. Sorry, wml::des::navbar was completed in WML 1.4.x the
first time. 

> preferring:
> * the hierarchical display ("twistie"-like behaviour in e.g. Win95 or
>   MacOS)
> * not using images nor image maps to render the display:
>   style sheets were the way to go

Thats also an interesting point: CSS. Hmmm... I'll think about this way of
navigation bar generation, too. Very interesting...

> There were some other limitations; the huge majority of the company's
> visitors are users of our OS/2 product; that platform hasn't progressed
> past 3.0, and the JavaScript support seemed to be unstable.  I preferred
> to avoid that.

> So I simply rolled my own.

Fine, no more comments. You take the best the state-of-the-art provided.

>> In general to summarize: The complete website looks good. Keep on your work...

> Thanks!
> You too, a very handy tool.  The alternative was frontpage!

<grin> Yes, MS Frontpage, AOL Press, Adobe Pagemill, ... All of them are nice
tools. But only for prototyping I think. Whenever it comes to generate a
complete webarea or website with consistent layout and design, a generation
approach like WML in the good old Unix fashion is still the best. It need not
be WML in particular, but at least a generation approach.

Greetings,
                                       Ralf S. Engelschall
                                       rse@engelschall.com
                                       www.engelschall.com
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