NAME

PerlPoint::Converters - README and common functions for PerlPoint converters

README

Covered topics:

Introduction
About PerlPoint-Converters
Prerequisits
What's new
Installation
Documentation
Test Cases
Bug Reports and Support
Credits
Licence

Introduction

PerlPoint is a simple text format which allows easy typing of text with headlines, bullet lists, normal text paragraphs, indented paragraphs for code examples etc., from which slides for presentations can be generated by a script without the need of proprietary software. Since there is a large variety of platforms which provide web browsers, HTML is a good choice for the output format. In principle, however, it is possible to generate each output format whose specification is known. At the moment there exist converters for HTML, LaTeX (alpha software) and SDF. The latter both may be used to generate printable output or to provide the basis for further processing.

About PerlPoint-Converters

This package provides two programs:

  pp2html
  pp2latex (still alpha software)

They convert an ASCII file written in the `PerlPoint' language to a set of HTML files or to Latex Files respectively. The `PerlPoint' language was initially invented by Tom Christiansen as a simple means for preparing slides. The idea was to just write down your headings and bullet items and then use a simple perl script to create the slides:

  =Header of first slide

  * Use your favourite editor

  * Start headings with a `='

  * Bullets items start with an asterisk `*'

The syntax of the original version was similar to POD and the layout of the slides was hard coded in Tom's pp2html script. The new syntax provides more felxibility and can be parsed with the PerlPoint::Parser from Jochen Stenzel's PerlPoint-Package.

The following list persents some of the features of pp2html and pp2latex:

  - HTML template files for header, footer and navigation bar
  - Support of Frame Sets
  - Support of the TreeControl Applet in tabel of contents
  - Headers with different levels with or wihout numbering
    (1, 1.1, 1.2, 2, ...)
  - Hyperlinks to internal and external pages
  - Automatic generation of table of contents and navigation links
  - Automatic generation of index
  - Bullet-Lists with standard <LI> bullets or with bullets from 
    a gif/jpeg file
  - Numbered lists and definition lists
  - Simple tables
  - Simple text formatting possible

For more information about the PerlPoint syntax and history please refer to the documentation in the PerlPoint-Package from Jochen Stenzel (perldoc PerlPoint::Parser) and to the provided documentation in the ./doc/PPDOC subdirectory (after a successful "make" in ./doc :-)

Prerequisits

This version needs Perl5.005.

The pp2html program uses the following packages which are available on CPAN or come with your Perl distribution:

  Pod::Text
  Getopt::Long
  Getopt::ArgvFile
  PerlPoint::Parser
  PerlPoint::Backend
  PerlPoint::Constants
  PerlPoint::Tags::Basic;
  PerlPoint::Tags::HTML;  (part of PerlPoint-Converters)
  PerlPoint::Tags::LaTeX; (part of PerlPoint-Converters)

The TreeApplet classes are contained in the pp2html_stypes subdirectory of this distribution. For more information about the TreeApplet classes refer to http://www.naturallyj.com. This distribution contains an older version which was freely available.

What's new in this version

This is version 1.00. You will need PerlPoint-Packet version 0.36 for this release.

Please refer to file "Changes".

NOTE:: Documentation is not yet perfect, but hopefully better than before. Please try a "make" in ./doc and look at the documents which should have been created in ./doc/PPDOC

Installation

Just get the PerlPoint-Converters-<release>.tar.gz file and unpack it in a temp directory:

  % tar zxvf PerlPoint-Converters-<release>.tar.gz 
  % cd PerlPoint-Converters-<release>
  % perl Makefile.PL
  % make
  % make test
  % make install

  % cd ./doc
  % make

The main program is `pp2html'. Try `pp2html --help | less' to get more information.

Documentation

"pp2hml" and "pp2latex" have a --help option which displays Usage information and some documentation about the PerlPoint Language. For a more detailed description please refer to the POD documentation of the following Modules:

 PerlPoint::Parser
 PerlPoint::Anchors
 PerlPoint::Backend
 PerlPoint::Constants
 PerlPoint::Tags
 PerlPoint::Tags::Basic
 PerlPoint::Tags::CPPP
 PerlPoint::Tags::HTML
 PerlPoint::Tags::LaTeX
 PerlPoint::Tags::SDF

Have also a look into the ./doc directory of your PerlPoint::Converters installation directory. There is a Makefile which produces the following PerlPoint documents:

Getting_Started
FAQ-pp2html
FAQ-parser
Writing-Converters

Test Cases

The examples test cases from the previous releases (ex_std_norm, ex_std_tree, ex_frm_norm and ex_frm_tree) have now been replaced with the documentation in the ./doc subdirectory.

Bug Reports and Support

Please send bug reports and requests to <lorenz.domke@gmx.de> There is also a mailing list for PerlPoint:

  perlpoint@perl.org

To join the mailing list, send a message to "perlpoint-subscribe@perl.org"

Credits

Thanks to Tom Christiansen for the idea and first implementation of PerlPoint! And special thanks for his permission to use this name for our new implementation.

Thanks to Jochen Stenzel who tested the first versions of pp2html and supplied the powerful PerlPoint-Package which is the base of this new implementation of pp2html.

Thanks to Stephen Riehm who shared his ideas of extensions for the original software with us. The final language was basically designed by a team of Jochen, him and me.

Thanks to Alex Sigel and Norbert Gruener who became our first testers outside the team and helped us by their usage reports. Special thanks to Alex for propagating the toolkit and his help to publish the software!

Licence

This module is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License distributed with Perl version 5.003 or (at your option) any later version. Please refer to the Artistic License that came with your Perl distribution for more details.

The Artistic License should have been included in your distribution of Perl. It resides in the file named "Artistic" at the top-level of the Perl source tree (where Perl was downloaded/unpacked - ask your system administrator if you dont know where this is). Alternatively, the current version of the Artistic License distributed with Perl can be viewed on-line on the World-Wide Web (WWW) from the following URL: http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html

DISCLAIMER

This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but is provided "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either expressed or implied, INCLUDING, without limitation, the implied warranties of MERCHANTABILITY and FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

The ENTIRE RISK as to the quality and performance of the software IS WITH YOU (the holder of the software). Should the software prove defective, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

IN NO EVENT WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY CREATE, MODIFY, OR DISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE BE LIABLE OR RESPONSIBLE TO YOU OR TO ANY OTHER ENTITY FOR ANY KIND OF DAMAGES (no matter how awful - not even if they arise from known or unknown flaws in the software).

Please refer to the Artistic License that came with your Perl distribution for more details.

SYNOPSIS

 use PerlPoint::Converters qw(
                               replace_keywords
                               update_file
                               copy_file
                             );

 copy_file($from, $to);

 update_file($from, $to);

 $line = replace_keywords($line, $KEY_HASH_REF);

DESCRIPTION

This module contains some common functions which are useful for most PerlPoint converters.

SUBROUTINES

replace_keywords($line, $KEY_HASH_REF);

Replace all occurences of certain keywords in $line with the values specified in the referenced hash. The keys in the hash must be lower case keywords.

Example:

 %OPT = (
    title        => "PerlPoint Examples",
    bot_left_txt => "Copyright A. User",
 );

 open(TPL, "a_template_file");
 while(<TPL>){
   print replace_keywords($_, \%OPT);
 }

This will replace "TITLE" with "PerlPoint Examples" and "BOT_LEFT_TXT" with "Copyright A. User".

The supported keywords are:

  TXT_CONTENTS
  TXT_INDEX
  PAGE_CNT
  TITLE
  BASE_LEFT_TXT
  BASE_RIGHT_TXT
  BASE_MIDDLE_TXT
  BOT_LEFT_TXT
  BOT_RIGHT_TXT
  BOT_MIDDLE_TXT
  TOP_LEFT_TXT
  TOP_RIGHT_TXT
  TOP_MIDDLE_TXT

  BGCOLOR
  FGCOLOR
  BOT_BGCOLOR
  TOP_BGCOLOR
  IDX_BGCOLOR
  TOC_BGCOLOR
  BOT_FGCOLOR
  TOP_FGCOLOR
  IDX_FGCOLOR
  TOC_FGCOLOR
  LINKCOLOR
  TOP_LINKCOLOR
  BOT_LINKCOLOR
  TOC_LINKCOLOR
  IDX_LINKCOLOR
  ALINKCOLOR
  TOP_ALINKCOLOR
  BOT_ALINKCOLOR
  TOC_ALINKCOLOR
  IDX_ALINKCOLOR
  VLINKCOLOR
  TOP_VLINKCOLOR
  BOT_VLINKCOLOR
  TOC_VLINKCOLOR
  IDX_VLINKCOLOR

  LABEL_NEXT
  LABEL_PREV
  LABEL_INDEX
  LABEL_CONTENTS

  SLIDE_PREFIX
  SLIDE_SUFFIX

  LOGO_IMAGE_FILENAME
  IMAGE_REF
  META_TAGS

copy_file($from, $to, $verbose, $KEY_HASH_REF);

Copy file $from to file $to. For binary files (! -T) the File::Copy method will be used. Text files are copied by reading from $from and printing to $to. All lines are treated with the "replace_keywords" method.

Prints a message to STDERR if $verbose is set to 1.

update_file($from, $to, $verbose, $KEY_HASH_REF, $moveFlag);

Update file $from to file $to if necessary. For binary files (! -T) the File::Copy method will be used. Files are only copied if the modification date of $to is older than the modification date of $from.

Text files are always copied by reading from $from and printing to $to because keywords might have changed. All lines are treated with the "replace_keywords" method.