rest2web-develop

[Rest2web-develop] How to arrange multiple rest2web trees?

[Chris G <cl...@is...>]

Maybe it's just me and wanting a tidy way to do things but I just
can't come up with a 'tidy' way of arranging a rest2web installation
so it appears logical and reasonably easy to maintain.

How do others handle this?

As I see it (and this will probably ramble a bit as I explain as I'm
talking to myself to some extent):-

    When you install rest2web you (very reasonably) get a
    rest2web-0.5.1 directory where everything you need is installed.
    I have copied the rest2web subdirectory to my python site-packages
    directory and I have put a copy of r2w.py on my path.  So far so
    good.

    Now I want to create a new 'source' tree for creating a web site.
    In my case it's called 'info'.  One of the major advantages of
    rest2web is that the source is readable in its own right, this is
    why I chose it.  So I create a sub-directory 'info' in my home
    directory and create text files there which I can (and will) view
    directly for local use.

    So where do I put the r2w files associated with my 'info' tree?
    By default r2w expects them to be in /home/chris/info but, to my
    mind anyway, that clutters the nice clean information resource I'm
    creating with things like templates, css files, etc.

    My solution at present is to create an 'info' directory in the
    rest2web-0.5.1 directory and put an r2w.ini, template file, css,
    etc. there but it's not ideal because that's the r2w software
    installation directory and having other (configuration related)
    stuff there makes upgrades awkward.  It also doesn't really work
    with the r2w examples and documentation there which are partly but
    not totally done the same way.

Maybe I'm being too complicated/demanding but ideally how I'd like it
to work is:-

    The rest2web installation itself goes into /usr/local or somewhere
    like that and, once installed, you never touch it except to
    upgrade it.  (Automation of the copying to site-packages would be
    nice but I'm quite happy with doing it manually)

    There's a configuration directory, probably somewhere in the
    user's home directory, where the .ini file for each 'tree' is kept
    and also any custom template and css files.   (I'm not sure about
    css, since they're used at run time)

    The 'source' and 'destination' directories (i.e. where the .txt
    files and .html files are respectively) have *only* the .txt and
    .html files in them.

I think there's probably a 'grey area' around the css files and maybe
template.txt.  Having 'images' and 'stylesheets' directories in the
destination directory is not too unreasonable as these don't visibly
clutter places that one sees normally.  On the other hand they're not
really in an easy to find place while building a site.


Just some ideas for kicking around, if I'm the only person thinking
this way then never mind, I'll live with it as it is because it does
so much in the sort of way I want.

-- 
Chris Green

Re: [Rest2web-develop] How to arrange multiple rest2web trees?

[Michael F. <fuz...@vo...>]

Chris G wrote:
> Maybe it's just me and wanting a tidy way to do things but I just
> can't come up with a 'tidy' way of arranging a rest2web installation
> so it appears logical and reasonably easy to maintain.
>
> How do others handle this?
>
> As I see it (and this will probably ramble a bit as I explain as I'm
> talking to myself to some extent):-
>
>     When you install rest2web you (very reasonably) get a
>     rest2web-0.5.1 directory where everything you need is installed.
>     I have copied the rest2web subdirectory to my python site-packages
>     directory and I have put a copy of r2w.py on my path.  So far so
>     good.
>
>     Now I want to create a new 'source' tree for creating a web site.
>     In my case it's called 'info'.  One of the major advantages of
>     rest2web is that the source is readable in its own right, this is
>     why I chose it.  So I create a sub-directory 'info' in my home
>     directory and create text files there which I can (and will) view
>     directly for local use.
>
>     So where do I put the r2w files associated with my 'info' tree?
>     By default r2w expects them to be in /home/chris/info but, to my
>     mind anyway, that clutters the nice clean information resource I'm
>     creating with things like templates, css files, etc.
>
>     My solution at present is to create an 'info' directory in the
>     rest2web-0.5.1 directory and put an r2w.ini, template file, css,
>     etc. there but it's not ideal because that's the r2w software
>     installation directory and having other (configuration related)
>     stuff there makes upgrades awkward.  It also doesn't really work
>     with the r2w examples and documentation there which are partly but
>     not totally done the same way.
>
> Maybe I'm being too complicated/demanding but ideally how I'd like it
> to work is:-
>
>     The rest2web installation itself goes into /usr/local or somewhere
>     like that and, once installed, you never touch it except to
>     upgrade it.  (Automation of the copying to site-packages would be
>     nice but I'm quite happy with doing it manually)
>
>     There's a configuration directory, probably somewhere in the
>     user's home directory, where the .ini file for each 'tree' is kept
>     and also any custom template and css files.   (I'm not sure about
>     css, since they're used at run time)
>
>     The 'source' and 'destination' directories (i.e. where the .txt
>     files and .html files are respectively) have *only* the .txt and
>     .html files in them.
>
> I think there's probably a 'grey area' around the css files and maybe
> template.txt.  Having 'images' and 'stylesheets' directories in the
> destination directory is not too unreasonable as these don't visibly
> clutter places that one sees normally.  On the other hand they're not
> really in an easy to find place while building a site.
>
>
> Just some ideas for kicking around, if I'm the only person thinking
> this way then never mind, I'll live with it as it is because it does
> so much in the sort of way I want.
>
>   

But what is to stop you doing this anyway ? Create a directory (wherever 
you want) with the config file and template. Then create a shell script 
(or batch file) which launches r2w.py with the correct config file (you 
can pass the template file location as a command line argument).

All the best,

Fuzzyman
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/articles.shtml

Re: [Rest2web-develop] How to arrange multiple rest2web trees?

[Chris G <cl...@is...>]

On Mon, Apr 02, 2007 at 12:27:27AM +0100, Michael Foord wrote:
> > Just some ideas for kicking around, if I'm the only person thinking
> > this way then never mind, I'll live with it as it is because it does
> > so much in the sort of way I want.
> >
> >   
> 
> But what is to stop you doing this anyway ? Create a directory (wherever 
> you want) with the config file and template. Then create a shell script 
> (or batch file) which launches r2w.py with the correct config file (you 
> can pass the template file location as a command line argument).
> 
Yes, you could be right, it was a bit of a 'think aloud' mail.

I think my main problem is that I have a (slightly) old-fashioned
programmers view of things (I'm an assembler/C/C++/Java programmer)
which expects things to be in compartments.  HTML and CSS and things
like that don't fit into my ordered view of the world too well.

What I have ended up doing is quite like what you suggested.  I have
now separated 'source' and 'destination' and in the source directory I
have the r2w.ini file and the template file.  Thus to build one
particular hierarchy I go to the top of that hierarchy and run r2w.py.

I don't quite know why I didn't see this way of doing things earlier!

-- 
Chris Green