Re: [wml] understanding swpage.wml

[Fritz Zaucker <nospam@thanx>]

We are using WML extensively. Some sites you can look at are

www.ee.ethz.ch
isg.ee.ethz.ch
opensource.ee.ethz.ch
www.ethrat.ch


For all *.html files there are *.wml files in the same directory and
they can be retrieved by http.

For your convenience I created a gzipped tar-file for the last
site. You can get it as http://www.ethrat.ch/ethrat.wml.tgz

Have fun,
Fritz

P.S.: The site is using true type fonts and the ImageMagick Perl
      module, so you'll have to install those to translate it.


On Mon, 21 Feb 2000, Jeff McCarrell wrote:

> Hi.  I am trying to understand how best to use wml, and I have been
> examining swpage.wml.  I have a couple of questions:
> 
> What is the top level command that builds all of the pages?  I assume that
> it is some wmk command, perhaps from a Makefile of some sort?
> 
> In this fragment:
> 
>      74	      <ifeq "$(areaparent)" ""
>      75	          <if <match "<get-var WML_SRC_FILENAME>" "index\\..*">
>      76	              <set-var areaparent="../">
>      77	              <set-var areaparent="">
>      78	          >
>      79	          <set-var areaparent="$(areaparent)">
>      80	      >
> 
> what is the motive for doing this?  I mean, I understand what the code is
> doing, but why do you want the parent directory when the source filename
> starts with index. ?
> 
> This code:
> 
>     130	..!PAGE_TITLE!>>
>     131	Unknown Page
>     132	<<..
> 
> sets up a default for the PAGE_TITLE named diversion.  Why is this a good
> thing to do?  It seems to me that there are a number of other (simpler) 
> ways of
> defining default values for things.  Why is the method of using a default 
> diversion
> used here?
> 
> As an observation, the thing about wml that is giving me the most difficulty
> is trying to understand how to put the whole thing together in a sensible way.
> Publishing swpage.wml has been very helpful for me, to see the whole thing
> working together.
> 
> A tarball of the site that I could modify and run the passes of 
> individually to examine
> the intermediate output would help too.  Is that available somewhere?
> 
> The other meta level question I have is how actively is wml being used?  I 
> know that
> is a subjective question, but if you have an opinion, I'd like to hear it.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help...
> 
> -- jeff
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Website META Language (WML)                www.engelschall.com/sw/wml/
> Official Support Mailing List                   sw-wml@engelschall.com
> Automated List Manager                       majordomo@engelschall.com
> 

-- 
Dr. Fritz Zaucker, Head IT Support Group
Department of Electrical Engineering,  Federal Institute of Technology
ETZ J97, Gloriastrasse 35, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Tel.: +41-1-632-5241 Fax: +41-1-632-1194 http://ee-staff.ethz.ch/~zaucker/
E-mail: zaucker@ee.ethz.ch (see home page for PGP key)

______________________________________________________________________
Website META Language (WML)                www.engelschall.com/sw/wml/
Official Support Mailing List                   sw-wml@engelschall.com
Automated List Manager                       majordomo@engelschall.com