NAME

Text::MicroMason::Docs::ReadMe - About the MicroMason Distribution

MOTIVATION

The HTML::Mason module provides a useful syntax for dynamic template interpretation (sometimes called embedded scripting): plain text (or HTML) containing occasional chunks of Perl code whose results are interpolated into the text when the template is "executed."

However, HTML::Mason also provides a full-featured web application framework with numerous other functions, and there are times in which I'd like to use the templating capability without configuring a full Mason installation.

Thus, the Text::MicroMason module was born: it supports the core aspects of the HTML::Mason syntax ("<%...%>" expressions, "%...\n" lines and "<%perl>...</%perl>" blocks, "<& file &>" includes, "%ARGS" and "$_out->()"), and omits the features that are web specific (like autohandlers) or are less widely used (like "<%method>" blocks).

You may well be thinking "yet another dynamic templating module? Sheesh!" And you'd have a good point. There certainly are a wide variety of templating toolkits on CPAN already. (For a brief list see Text::MicroMason::Docs::Related.)

Nonetheless, I think this module occupies a useful niche: it provides a reasonable subset of HTML::Mason syntax in a very light-weight fashion. In comparison to the other modules listed, MicroMason aims to be fairly lightweight, using one eval per parse, converting the template to a compiled subroutine reference, and requiring less than five hundred lines of Perl code.

Although it notoriously difficult to fairly benchmark competing template frameworks, at least some anecdotal evidence indicates that this module performs reasonably well. http://use.perl.org/~hctif/journal/25211 http://www.gtchat.de/templateengines/templateengines_en.html

It is also highly modular, allowing users to select and enable the combination of features they desire. Automatic caching, safe compartments, post-processing and other features are available as mixin classes that are loaded on demand.

I've recently added mixin classes that emulate the template syntax used by Apache::ASP, Embperl, HTML::Template, PLP, Text::Template, and Text::QuickTemplate.

DISTRIBUTION STATUS

This is version 2.23 of Text::MicroMason.

If you encounter any problems, please inform the current maintainer and I'll endeavor to patch them promptly.

This module's CPAN registration should read:

  Name            DSLIP  Description
  --------------  -----  ---------------------------------------------
  Text::          Group 11: Text Processing
  ::MicroMason    Rdpfp  Simplified HTML::Mason Templating

Please see the CPAN Testers report for a sample of systems this module has been tested successfully on:

 http://testers.cpan.org/show/Text-MicroMason.html

PREREQUISITES

The required version of perl has been increased to 5.6 as of version 1.993_01. It should work with on any standard platform which runs Perl.

Although almost all currently existing features work on versions of Perl reaching back to 5.0, it will benefit Text::MicroMason in the long run if supporting legacy versions of Perl was not necessary. Please contact the new maintainer to gripe, if you absolutely need Text::MicroMason on an older version of Perl.

There is one pre-requisite module not included with the core distribution which must be installed from CPAN: Class::MixinFactory.

If you want to use the Text::Template compatibility mode, you will also need to install Text::Balanced.

Various other mixins included in MicroMason require other modules in order to be useful, but MicroMason installs and tests without them. (I should be more specific here in the future.)

INSTALLATION

You should be able to install this module using the CPAN shell interface:

  perl -MCPAN -e 'install Text::MicroMason'

Alternately, you may retrieve this package from CPAN ("http://search.cpan.org/~ferrency/").

After downloading the distribution, follow the normal procedure to unpack and install it, using the commands shown below or their local equivalents on your system:

  tar xzf Text-MicroMason-*.tar.gz
  cd Text-MicroMason-*
  perl Makefile.PL
  make test && sudo make install

SUPPORT

If you have questions or feedback about this module, please feel free to contact the maintainer or original author at the e-mail address listed below. Although there is no formal support program, I do attempt to answer email promptly.

I would be particularly interested in any suggestions towards improving the documentation, correcting any Perl-version or platform dependencies, as well as general feedback and suggested additions.

Bug reports that contain a failing test case are greatly appreciated, and suggested patches will be promptly considered for inclusion in future releases.

You can report bugs via the CPAN web tracking system, or send mail to "bug-Text-MicroMason#rt.cpan.org", replacing "#" with "@".

  http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Text-MicroMason

COMMUNITY

If you've found this module useful or have feedback about your experience with it, consider sharing your opinion with other Perl users by posting your comment to CPAN's ratings system.

  http://cpanratings.perl.org/rate/?distribution=Text-MicroMason

For more general discussion, you may wish to post a message on the CPAN::Forum, on PerlMonks, or on the comp.lang.perl.modules newsgroup. These are not all monitored by the current maintainer, so if you want a response, please contact me directly.

  http://www.cpanforum.com/dist/Text-MicroMason
  http://perlmonks.org/?node=Seekers%20of%20Perl%20Wisdom
  http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.lang.perl.modules

THANKS

My sincere thanks to the following people for their feedback and contributions:

  Pascal Barbedor
  Mark Hampton
  Philip King
  Daniel J. Wright
  William Kern
  Tommi Maekitalo
  Alan Ferrency
  Jonas Alves
  Alexander
  Matthew Simon Cavalletto
  Jon Warbrick
  Frank Wiegand
  Mike Kelly
  Niko Tyni
  Ansgar Burchardt
  vshih
  Debian Perl Group
  Lucas Kanashiro
  gregor herrmann

SOURCE MATERIAL

Portions based on HTML::Mason by Jonathan Swartz.

Portions based on Embperl by Gerald Richter.

Portions based on HTML::Template by Sam Tregar.

Portions based on PLP by Juerd Waalboer.

Portions based on Text::Template by Mark Jason Dominus.

Portions based on Text::QuickTemplate by Eric J. Roode.

AUTHOR

Developed by Matthew Simon Cavalletto at Evolution Softworks. You may contact the author directly at "evo#cpan.org" or "simonm#cavalletto.org", replacing "#" with "@".

Currently maintained by Alan Ferrency <ferrency#cpan.org> at pair Networks, Inc.

LICENSE

You may use, modify, and distribute this software under the same terms as Perl.