include homepage.en.yhtml2 page "Using YML 2" { p >> YML 2 is a smart ¬http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_processor template language¬ and ¬http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific_language DSL concept¬. This guide will give you a feeling, for what it's worth. >> h2 id=wiki > Creating a Wiki like language for writing documentation p >> Let's say, we want to define a small Wiki system, which should be translated from a Wiki like language into HTML. This guide is written in one using YML 2. I call it ƒYHTML. You can view the ¬homepage.en.yhtml2 source code of what you're reading now¬. It's about writing web pages like that: >> Code { || page "Hello, world" { p ¬features#blockquote >>¬ Hello, world! I can link here, say: || > ] ¬http://en.wikipedia.org to Wikipedia¬ > \n || ¬features#blockquote >>¬ p ¬features#blockquote >>¬ || > ] This is ƒemphasized. And this is «code». > \n || ¬features#blockquote >>¬ } || } p >> Prerequisite: knowing how ¬http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html#Markup HTML¬ works. >> h2 id=how > How does that work? p >> YML 2 is a template language. That means, you can define ¬http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion recursive¬ templates of what's to be generated. This is ¬homepage.en.yhtml2 the code¬; just click on underlined things to get an explanation: >> Code { || ¬features#quotethrough <¬?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?¬features#quotethrough >¬ ¬features#quotethrough <¬!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"¬features#quotethrough >¬ ¬features#decl decl¬ pageContent ¬features#alias alias¬ body ¬features#defaultbody {¬ a name¬features#named =¬"top"; ¬features#including include¬ ¬heading.en.yhtml2 heading.en.yhtml2¬; div id¬features#named =¬"entries" ¬features#contentfc content¬; ¬features#defaultbody }¬; ¬features#decl decl¬ page(¬features#pointer *title¬, lang¬features#defaultattr =¬"en", xml:lang¬features#defaultattr =¬"en", xmlns¬features#defaultattr =¬"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml") ¬features#alias alias¬ html ¬features#defaultbody {¬ head ¬features#subtree {¬ title ¬features#pointer *title¬; meta http-equiv¬features#named =¬"Content-Type", content¬features#named =¬"text/html;charset=UTF-8"; link rel¬features#named =¬"stylesheet", type¬features#named =¬"text/css", href¬features#named =¬"format.css"; ¬features#subtree }¬ pageContent ¬features#contentfc content¬; ¬features#defaultbody }¬; || br; > ¬features#userop define operator¬ ] "¬\s*(.*?)\s+(.*?)\s*¬" > ¬features#userop as¬ a href¬features#named =¬"%1" ¬features#quote >¬ %2 br; > ¬features#userop define operator¬ ] "«(.*?)»" > ¬features#userop as¬ code ¬features#quote >¬ %1 br; > ¬features#userop define operator¬ ] "ƒ(\S+)" > ¬features#userop as¬ em ¬features#quote >¬ %1 } h2 id=details > Details, please! h3 > Starting with XHTML headers p >> Because HTML headers are boring and annoying, I'm copying them from document to document. And at last, they ended here ;-) If you already have things in angle brackets, you can just add them to your YML 2 document “as is”, because everything which starts with an opening angle bracket will be a “give through” for the YML 2 toolchain. So our first two lines are: >> Code || ¬features#quotethrough <¬?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?¬features#quotethrough >¬ ¬features#quotethrough <¬!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"¬features#quotethrough >¬ || h3 > Defining the document structure p >> A Webpage usually has a structure: it has a specific title and content. Beside that, technical things have to be encoded. A Webpage in XHTML is XML text, setting xmlns to the right name space. That's how we do that in YML 2: >> Code || ¬features#decl decl¬ page(¬features#pointer *title¬, lang¬features#defaultattr =¬"en", xml:lang¬features#defaultattr =¬"en", xmlns¬features#defaultattr =¬"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml") ¬features#alias alias¬ html ¬features#defaultbody {¬ || p >> First we ¬features#decl declare¬ the «page» function. It's ¬features#alias aliased to¬ «html», so it will generate a «html» tag, not a «page» tag. >> p >> The first parameter, «*title», is a placeholder for the title of the document. The content of what we give here later will be repeated at any place we're putting «*title» into our template. This technique is called ¬features#pointer Pointers¬. >> p >> The two other attributes have ¬features#defaultattr Default Values¬, so they're generated each time the «page» function will be called. >> h3 > The Document content p >> The document content is what is in the «{ ... }» block: >> Code || ¬features#defaultbody {¬ head ¬features#subtree {¬ title ¬features#pointer *title¬; meta http-equiv¬features#named =¬"Content-Type", content¬features#named =¬"text/html;charset=UTF-8"; link rel¬features#named =¬"stylesheet", type¬features#named =¬"text/css", href¬features#named =¬"format.css"; ¬features#subtree }¬ pageContent ¬features#contentfc content¬; ¬features#defaultbody }¬; || p >> This reflects, that each HTML document has a «head» and a «body» section. Of course, we insert the «*title» pointer value in the «title» tag. Then some meta data and a link to a nice ¬http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets CSS¬ ;-) >> p >> For the «body» section, we have a little helper function, «pageContent». The function named «content» is a ¬features#contentfc placeholder¬, where the content of the page will be placed, when our «page» function will be called. >> h3 > Generating the «body» with the «pageContent» function p >> The «pageContent» function is used for generating the «body» with standard elements; therefore, it's ¬features#alias aliased¬ to «body»: >> Code || ¬features#decl decl¬ pageContent ¬features#alias alias¬ body ¬features#defaultbody {¬ a name¬features#named =¬"top"; ¬features#including include¬ ¬heading.en.yhtml2 heading.en.yhtml2¬; div id¬features#named =¬"entries" ¬features#contentfc content¬; ¬features#defaultbody }¬; || p >> It first sets an HTML anchor, so links can reference the top of the page: >> Code | a name¬features#named =¬"top"; p >> Then a file with heading and navigation (the menu to the right on the page here) is being ¬features#including included¬: >> Code | ¬features#including include¬ ¬heading.en.yhtml2 heading.en.yhtml2¬; p >> At last, the page content is being put in, surrounded by a «div» named «entries», so it can be referenced later, too: >> Code || div id¬features#named =¬"entries" ¬features#contentfc content¬; || p >> If you'll have a look on the included ¬heading.en.yhtml2 heading.en.yhtml2¬ file, then you'll see the the static head and navigation sections hard coded. With the ¬format.css CSS file¬ everything is brought to the right place. >> h3 > Defining some operators for the Wiki like language p >> The trick with a Wiki like language is, that one can write plain text, and adding structural things to it, like links i.e. >> p >> So we need language constructs, which let us structure. In YML 2 these are called ¬features#userop User defined in-text Operators¬: >> Code { > ¬features#userop define operator¬ ] "¬\s*(.*?)\s+(.*?)\s*¬" > ¬features#userop as¬ a href¬features#named =¬"%1" ¬features#quote >¬ %2 br; > ¬features#userop define operator¬ ] "«(.*?)»" > ¬features#userop as¬ code ¬features#quote >¬ %1 br; > ¬features#userop define operator¬ ] "ƒ(\S+)" > ¬features#userop as¬ em ¬features#quote >¬ %1 } p >> They look somewhat disturbing, if you're not familiar with ¬http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression Regex¬, so I will explain. >> p >> First we define a link: >> Code { > ¬features#userop define operator¬ ] "¬\s*(.*?)\s+(.*?)\s*¬" > ¬features#userop as¬ a href¬features#named =¬"%1" ¬features#quote >¬ %2 } p >> The keyword «define operator» starts the definition. Then there is the Regex: >> Code | "¬\s*(.*?)\s+(.*?)\s*¬" p { "I decided I want to have the special character " "¬" " surrounding each link like this: " code ] ¬http://en.wikipedia.org go to Wikipedia¬ ". This is just like what ¬http://www.mediawiki.org MediaWiki¬ does with brackets; here the " "same would read: «[http://en.wikipedia.org go to Wikipedia]»." } p >> I like using such special characters. This is because I'm using a ¬http://www.apple.com/mac/ Mac¬ and ¬http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux GNU/Linux¬. If you're using ¬http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ Windows¬, I really can recommend ¬http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/Hotkeys.htm AutoHotkey¬. It's a great piece of software to expand the keyboard capabilities of Windows (and much more). >> p { > How does this Regex stuff work? It's a ¬http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_matching pattern matching¬ language consuming characters with each > command. Well, we want to have the following: The first thing between the ] ¬ > markers shell be the link target URL. All other things shell be the name of the link shown. >> For that case, we're first consuming whitespace with «\s*» – the «\s» means “an arbitrary whitespace character” (like blank, newline, etc.). The asterisk «*» means “some of them or none”, so this consumes all whitespace which is there (and gives no error if there is none). >> } p >> Second, we open a group with parentheses «( )» This first group we can later reference as «%1» when substituting. >> p >> Inside this group, we're telling that we want anything in it, no matter what it is. For this case, we're using a dot «.» which means “any character”, followed by asterisk questionmark «*?», which is the code for “consume as much as you can, but only up to the next code in the Regex”. The total «(.*?)» consumes the target URL (without checking it). >> p >> Then we're consuming some whitespace again, this time with «\s+». Using a plus «+» instead of an asterisk «*» or asterisk questionmark «*?» means: there has to be at least one whitespace character. And we want whitespace between the URL and the name, right? ;-) >> p >> Now we're consuming the second group. We're consuming whatever is there – it's the name of the link. We're using another «(.*?)» group for it. It will be group 2, and we can reference it with this in the substitution: «%2». >> p { > At last we're consuming redundant whitespace with «\s*», and our Regex is closed by another ] ¬ > character. And that makes the total Regex: } Code ] "¬\s*(.*?)\s+(.*?)\s*¬" p >> So what can we do with it? What we want are «» tags. And that means, we want to call a function like this: «a href="..." > ...» >> p >> As «href» we want to have the result of group 1, because this is the link target. After the ¬features#quote Quote operator¬ «>» we want to have what is the name of the link, that is the result of group 2. That we can write literally: >> Code | a href="%1" > %2 p >> Our first User defined in-text Operator is ready :-) >> p >> Maybe you would prefer using brackets. So just do it ;-) Change the Regex to this, and you can use brackets for links like in MediaWiki; we have to escape the brackets «[ ]» with a backslash «\\», because brackets are also codes in Regex, and we don't want the code, we really want brackets: >> Code | "\[\s*(.*?)\s+(.*?)\s*\]" p >> The other two operators should now be easy to understand: >> Code { > ¬features#userop define operator¬ ] "«(.*?)»" > ¬features#userop as¬ code ¬features#quote >¬ %1 br; > ¬features#userop define operator¬ ] "ƒ(\S+)" > ¬features#userop as¬ em ¬features#quote >¬ %1 } p >> A tip: the code with an upper case letter S «\S» means, that only non-whitespace characters shell be consumed. >> h2 id=using > Using it p >> How to write a new web page with our templates? Here's a ¬hello.en.yhtml2 hello world¬. We can use ¬features#blockquote Block Quotes¬ for entering text, and our new self defined operators: >> Code { || ¬features#including include¬ homepage.en.yhtml2 page "Hello, world" { p ¬features#blockquote >>¬ Hello, world! I can link here, say: || > ] ¬http://en.wikipedia.org to Wikipedia¬ > \n || ¬features#blockquote >>¬ p ¬features#blockquote >>¬ || > ] This is ƒemphasized. And this is «code». > \n || ¬features#blockquote >>¬ } || } p >> The result you can ¬hello see here¬: >> iframe src="hello", width="100%", height=300 > ¬hello see here¬ div id=bottom { > ¬index << back to Introduction¬ > ¬#top ^Top^¬ > ¬features >> The Features¬ > ¬programming.en.yhtml2 (source)¬ } }