Børre Stenseth, January 05, 2004

SiteLite is a program that:

• lets you build and maintain simple sites without in-depth knowledge of html

• lets you build and maintain complex sites with a minimum of effort on the tedious taks

• has a completely open architecture without databases or proprietary file formats. All files, txt or html, may be inspected and edited by any editor at any time.

• is based on a script file that describes your site, rather than an integrated IDE

• splits content, structure and layout in a simple and efficient way.

• lets you build and maintain sites in cooperation with other people, the source files may be anywhere on the internet.

Content

The content is written in the block-files. The content is any legal html text. The content may be prepared in any text-editor or html-editor. A page may be built with any number of blocks. A block-file may consist of one or more identifyable blocks, each with an address-label, a target. The template is assumed to have matching address-labels and the associated blocks are pasted into the template. Blocks may also be anonymous, that is without a target assignement. In that case they are by default routed to a general SL_BLOCK-address in the template.

Structure

The structure of the site is described in the script-file. The structure is basically a combination of hierarchy and sequence. The sequence is described by the sequence of the page definitions in the script, and the hierarchy by the levels of the pages, which is a part of the page description.

Layout

The layout of the pages are described by the templates and the associated style sheet and graphical resources. The template organise the overall structure of the page and routes the blocks to the appropriate places. The graphical resources are imagefiles like arrows, logo, background etc which are used by the templates. The style sheet defines mainly text styles, text colors etc.

All templates, stylesheets and graphics may be (re)defined by the user. SiteLite comes with a default standard set of such resources to make it easy to get started.

Elements

To realise this strategy, and at the same time, give the user a large amount of freedom, SiteLite must rely on some information placed in the involved files. This information is described as XML-elements. For instance in a block a typical element is.

<SL_BLOCK TARGET="SL_INGRESS">this is the ingress</SL_BLOCK>
 

and the matching element in the template has one of the two following forms:

<SL_INGRESS>this is where the ingress will be put</SL_INGRESS>

<SL_INGRESS/>

In the former case the content of the receiving elements is changed. In the latter case the entire element is replaced by the ingress.

It is up to the user to decide wether the SiteLite-elements should be removed completely from the generated pages or not. They should be removed if you want to validate your pages as strict html. By default SiteLite makes a complete cleanup of all SiteLite-tags in all generated pages. This may be hindered by the scriptline:

 OPTIONS:KEEPTAGS
 

Sample

A very simple script without own templatedefinitions. The site use only pagetypes (I,P,PRINTALL) which will produce "standard" templates automatically. No replaces, no collections, no options.

Note that the printpage has level 0. This indicates that the page will be built, but not included in the sitestructure, it will not appear in tables of contents.

// Scriptfile for website MySite
// General site section

SITEVERSION:3
SITECATALOG:C:\mysite3\
KEYWORDS:sitelite,website
SITENAME:MySite
SITEEDITOR:<a href="mailto:my.self@home.net">My Self</a>

// Page section

1,Home,I,index.html
BLOCKS:blocks\b-index.html

1,Sitemap,P,pages\toc.html
BLOCKS:blocks\b-toc.html

1,Page1,P,pages\pageone.html
PAGETIP:This page describes the fundamental issues
BLOCKS:blocks\b-page1.html

1,Page2,P,pages\pagetwo.html
BLOCKS:blocks\b-page2.html

// a print-page, not included in structure

0,All Pages,PRINTALL,pages\allpages.html
BLOCKS:blocks\b-allpages.html

SITEVERSION:3

Must be exactly like this

SITENAME:sitename

sitename is the name of your site. This name will be set as the content of element SL_SITENAME.

SITENAME:mysite

SITECATALOG:sitecatalog

sitecatalog is the catalog on disk where you want to build your site. All relative filepaths and urls in other lines of the script is relative to this catalog.

SITEURL:siteurl

siteurl is the url where you will finally publish your site. This value will be placed as content of element SL_SITEURL.

RESOURCES:resourcecatalog

resourcecatalog is the catalog on disk where you store all the resources that are referenced as being in catalog gfx in your templates (and blocks). Must be relative to sitecatalog, or an absolute URL. See the page: Resources.

Default resourcecatalog is gfx

SITEEDITOR:siteeditor

siteeditor is the name, reference or mail to the editor of the site. This value will be placed as content in element SL_SITEEDITOR.

SITEEDITOR:my self
SITEEDITOR:<a href="scripts/my.place.net/~my.self">My Site</a>
SITEEDITOR:<a href="mailto:my.self@myplace.net">Mail me</a>
or
SITEEDITOR:scripts/my.place.net/~my.self
SITEEDITOR:mailto:my.self@myplace.net
depending on how the receiving element, SL_SITEEDITOR, is placed in the template.

KEYWORDS:keyword[,keyword[..]]

Any number of commaseparated keywords. Will be placed in the element SL_KEYWORDS.

Purpose is to control some decisions in a buildprocess, which enhance the functionality of SiteLite.

OPTIONS:option[,option].
The options are:

• KEEPTAGS: Don't perform the final cleanup of all SiteLite-tags in the resulting pages after build. Default is to remove all tags. This option may be overridden by individual pages, see pageline options. KEEPTAGS may be usefull if the pages you produce will be used as as "rawmaterial" in other operations, by SiteLite or any other program.
• COMMENTED: Use commented tags. When this option is set, SiteLite will expect to find all SiteLite-tags in comments, like: <!--SL_BLOCK--> <!--/SL_BLOCK-->. If this option is set all material must be prepared accordingly. This may be an option if you don't want the SiteLite-tags to interfere with your attempts to do validation, not only on your resulting pages, but also on templates and blocks-files. This behaviour may also be controlled by individual BLOCK-lines.

  Note that material imported by an SL_IMPORT-element may not be extracted from commented tags.

OPTIONS:KEEPTAGS

Purpose is to introduce other templates than the standard templates, see page: Templates.

ATEMPLATE:type,location

type is any string you intend to use as identifier for this template in pagelines in the script.

location is any relative (to the sitecatalog) or absolute fileaddres or relative (to the sitecatalog) or absolute URL for the template file.

Note 1 All templates collected from an absolute URL are copied to the templates-catalog each time the script is executed. If you edit this local copy, you should correct the location accordingly or disconnect the internet to avoid that your changes are lost in the next build.

Note 2 Unless you have good reasons for it, all templates you introduce should be placed in the templates- catalog, and all images they refer should be placed in the gf x-catalog. This strategy ensures that SiteLite is able to correct all references without naming conflicts when a template is used to build a page.

ATEMPLATE:xyz,templates/nf_xyz_template.html
ATEMPLATE:LIST,c:\mytemplates\nf_xyz_template.html
ATEMPLATE:stolen,http://www.ia.hiof.no/~borres/gb/g fx/nf_p_template.html

Purpose is to make a replace in the built pages. This has no effect on the building blocks, the source material.

REPLACE1:out,in

out is any string you want to replace.

in is the replacement.

REPLACE1 can also have the following form to allow commas in the in and/or out strings:

REPLACE1:SEPARATOR=|:out|in
where | can be any character that does not appear in in or out. And it cannot be # or :.

If in starts with # the rest is interpreted as a location, a relative or absolute filepath or a relative or absolute URL. The content of this file is used as replacement.

Replaces are done late in the building process, after assembly of all block-files, after imports, after indexes are built and after all tables of contents is built. It is done before general collections and printpages.

REPLACE1:h1>,h2>
REPLACE1:<a href="mailto:myself@myplace.no">myself</a>,myself REPLACE1:SEPARATOR=&:oranges, bananas&apples,pears REPLACE1:oranges,#C:\fruit\fruitlist.txt

Purpose is to make a replace in the built pages. All strings that are enclosed by two other strings are replaced. This has no effect on the building blocks, the source material.

REPLACE2:left,right,in

left is any string that serves as left bracket.

right is any string that serves as right bracket.

in is the replacement.

REPLACE2 can also have the following form to allow commas in the in and/or out strings:

REPLACE1:SEPARATOR=|:left|right|in
where | can be any character that does not appear in in or out. And it cannot be # or :.

If in starts with # the rest is interpreted as a location, a relative or absolute filepath or a relative or absolute URL. The content of this file is used as replacement.

Replaces are done late in the building process, after assembly of all block-files, after imports, after indexes are built and after all tables of contents is built. It is done before general collections and printpages.

REPLACE2:<!--message-->,<!--/message-->,This site is under construction REPLACE2:<a href="mailto:,">myself</a>,mytempmail@mytempplace.no REPLACE2:SEPARATOR=&:oranges, bananas&, pears&, apples

Purpose is to copy files prior to building. This may be usefull when sites have some kind of dependencies.

PRECOPY:from,to

from any legal location, filename, url or catalogname

to any legal location, filename, url or catalogname

PRECOPY:d:\mycat\myfile.html,c:\yourcat\myfile.html
PRECOPY:d:\mycat\templates\,templates\
PRECOPY:http://www.x.y/~my/z/source.txt,c:\newsite\sourcefiels\source.txt

Purpose is to copy files after building. This may be usefull when sites have some kind of dependencies.

POSTCOPY:from,to

from any legal location, filename, url or catalogname

to any legal location, filename, url or catalogname

POSTCOPY:d:\mycat\myfile.html,c:\yourcat\myfile.html
POSTCOPY:d:\mycat\templates\,templates\
POSTCOPY:http://www.x.y/~my/z/source.txt,c:\newsite\sourcefiels\source.txt

Purpose is give SiteLite a list of words to build in an indextable from. The index table is placed as the content of an element: SL_INDEX.

Note that the use of elements SL_INX in the text is a better way to control limited indexing.

INDEXWORDS:[indexname,]location

indexname is optional and identifies the index these words will be presented in. Default is index1.

location is any relative (to the sitecatalog) or absolute fileaddres or relative (to the sitecatalog) or absolute URL for a file containing words theat will appear in the index. The content of this file in location is pure ascii-text. Each line contains a word with synonyms. The first word on the line will appear in the indextable.

Lines may look like this

   INDEXWORDS:awordfile.txt
   INDEXWORDS:thewordix,awordfile.txt

A file may look like:

   Shadows,Shadowing,shadows,shadowing
   Boil,boiled,boil,boiling

Purpose is to order SiteLite to collect a list of any content that are eclosed in any kind of brackets. The collection will be placed as content in a SL_COLLECTION element.

COLLECTION:collectionname,leftpar,rightpar

collectionname the name of the collection that will identify it to the SL_COLLECTION element.

leftpar is any text that serves as left bracket for the content to collected.

rightpar is any text that serves as right bracket for the content to collected.

COLLECTION:Formulas,<!--Formula-->,<!--/Formula-->
COLLECTION:SpecialImages,<!--collectimage-->,<!--/collectimage-->
COLLECTION:descriptions,<h5>,</h5>
COLLECTION:tasks,<div class="task">,</div>

A pageline describes a page. It will normally be followed by one or more BLOCK-lines that describes the content.

pagelevel,pagename[,type[,location[,author[,message[,option]]]]]

pagelevel controls the structure of the site. Pages with level m will be considered as children of prevoiuos pages with level less than m. Pages with level 0 will be built, but will not be included in any kind of table of content. Level 0 pages are usefull for pop-ups and framecontents.

pagename is the name of the page. The pagename may be used as reference.

type is the type of template the page will be built upon. This may be a standard template or any template you have defined by a ATEMPLATE-line in the script. See page Templates.

location is any fileaddress relative (to the sitecatalog) or absolute fileaddres or relative (to the sitecatalog) URL. If the location is an absolute URL the page will not be written or built, only referenced.

author is any text that identifies the author of the page. See element SL_PAGEAUTHOR.

message is any text that will be inserted in element SL_PAGEMESSAGE.

option control two issues: build and tagging.

• Build. Two possible values: K and N. K means that the page will not be assembled from source, but all existing elements will be updated. N means that the page will not be touched at all, but will appear in tables of contents. N dominates K. If neither is set, the page is built completely from scratch.
• Tagging. Two possible values: T or R. T means that all tags are kept in the page. R clears all tags. If neither is set, the behaviour is controlled by the the global scriptoption, which defaults to "clear all tags". T may be usefull if the page you produce will be used as "rawmaterial" in another operation, by SiteLite or another program.

If a page has only level and name, the pagename will simply appear as a heading in tables of contents.

1,Welcome,I,index.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-index.html
2,Poo,P,pages/page1.html,Winnie The Poo,The pathces are honey
  BLOCKS:source/b-poo.html
2,Myself,P,pages/mp.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-mypage.html
1,A page,P,pages/pagep.html,,,KT
1,SiteMap,C,pages/toc.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-toc.html

BLOCK-lines included to make the sequence meaningfull.

A pagetip is a simple unformatted text that will appear as a title-attribute in a href-element refering to the page. The pagetip will be included in tables of contents.

A page's pagetip is also available on the page itself in the element: <SL_PAGETIP/>.

PAGETIP:text

The text is normally rather short. If it is naturally to split a line a & will bind the line to the next.

1,Welcome,I,index.html
  PAGETIP:This page is a nice example of&
  the kind of page you will find on sites like this
  BLOCKS:source/b-index.html,source/b-news.html
2,Poo,P,pages/page1.html,Winnie The Poo,The pathces are honey
  PAGETIP:just a patch
  BLOCKS:source/b-poo.html

Pagelines included to make the sequence meaningfull.

A blockline describes any number of blockfiles that serves as source for the content of the page described in the preceding pageline. Each block-file may contain any number of SL_BLOCK elements of any type. A block-file may be used by many pages.

BLOCKS:location[,location]

location is any fileaddress relative (to the sitecatalog) or absolute fileaddres or relative (to the sitecatalog) URL or absolute URL.

If the location is an absolute URL the file will be copied to a catalog called imported in the sitecatalog. The catalog structure within imported will match the structure in the URL. Contained images are copied as well. If you run SiteLite off-line the local copy will be used when building.

Non-existing blocks will be established with a content that simply indicates the location of the block.

If SiteLite does not find any SL_BLOCK elements to extract from in a blockfile, it will normlly use the compete file as a block.

A block-line may have alternative forms:

• CBLOCKS:location[,location]

  This tells SiteLite to extract commented blocks from the following files. A commented block may have this form:

  <!--SL_BLOCK--> content <!--/SL_BLOCK-->

• OLDBLOCKS:location[,location]

  This tells SiteLite to extract SiteLite version2 blocks from the following files. A version2 block have this form:

  <!--BLOCK--> content <!--/BLOCK-->

• BODYBLOCKS:location[,location]

  This tells SiteLite to use the body-tag as a substitute for a block-tag.

  <body> content </body>

This way we can extract material from published and validated files and we can extract material from files prepared for version 2 of SiteLite.

1,Welcome,I,index.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-index.html,source/b-news.html
2,Poo,P,pages/page1.html,Winnie The Poo,The pathces are honey
  BLOCKS:source/b-poo.html
2,Myself,P,pages/mp.html
  CBLOCKS:source/b-mypage.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-mypage-second_part.html
1,SiteMap,C,pages/toc.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-toc.html

Pagelines included to make the sequence meaningfull.

A friends-line describes any number of pages that the page in the preceding pageline will have a special association to. For instance indicating that the content relies on the fact that readers are familiar with the content on the other pages.

Friends may be referenced by name or by location

FRIENDS:pagename[,pagename]
FRIENDS:location[,location]

1,Welcome,I,index.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-index.html,source/b-news.html
2,Poo,P,pages/page1.html,Winnie The Poo,The pathces are honey
  BLOCKS:source/b-poo.html
  FRIENDS:pages/mp.html
2,Myself,P,pages/mp.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-mypage.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-mypage-second_part.html
  FRIENDS:Poo
1,SiteMap,C,pages/toc.html
  BLOCKS:source/b-toc.html

Pagelines and blocklines included to make the sequence meaningfull.

All elements may have short or complete form. All elements may have an optional attribute: APPEND If this attribute has the value OFF, the present content is replaced with the new content. If this attribute has the value ON, the new content is added to the content already present and if the new content is empty the preset content is removed. OFF is default.

Optional attributes are shown as ATT. Default attribute values are shown as VALUE. Click on the bullet to see a full explanation of the element and its intended use.

All elements in this group takes an optional attribute: TARGET="name". This attribute has effect on framebased solutions only.

SL_BLOCK placed in a blockfile: The purpose is to route contents from the blockfile to a template.

• TARGET="tagname". tagname is the address in the template where this contentblock is routed. SiteLite expects to find tagname as a receiving element in the template. If TARGET is omitted, SiteLite expects to find a SL_BLOCK-element in the template.
• WRAPPER="wfilename". The block will be wrapped in the content of file wfilename before it is transferred to the destination. The file wfilename must contain an element of this type <SL_BLOCK/> to indicated where the wrapped block should be placed within the wrapper-text. wfilename may be an URL, an absolute filename or a filename relative to the sitecatalog.
  Default is no wrapper.

APPEND has no meaning and the short form, without content, has no meaning.

Note that any elementname that matches a TARGET attribute value in the template file may be used to recive content. For clearity and consistence a targeted elementname should start with SL_. This is also necessary for SiteLite to clear all traces of SiteLite-tagging in a finished page.

SL_BLOCK placed in a template file: The purpose is to receive contents from block files.

• WRAPPER="wfilename". The block will be wrapped in the content of file wfilename before it is transferred to the destination. The file wfilename must contain an element of type <SL_BLOCK/> to indicated where the wrapped block should be placed within the wrapper-text. wfilename may be an URL, an absolute filename or a filename relative to the sitecatalog.
  Default is no wrapper.
• SHOWTAGS="OFF" | "ON". "ON" instructs SiteLite to replace all occurances of < and > with the approriate entities. This makes it possible to quote programcode or html(xml) code without corrupting the page. "OFF" is default.
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON". ON instructs SiteLite to append the copied content to the content already present within the element. OFF is default.

Note that any elementname that matches a TARGET attribute value in a block file may be used to recive content. For clearity and consistence a targeted elementname should start with SL_. This is also necessary for SiteLite to clear all traces of SiteLite-tagging in a finished page.

This tag may appear in a source file or a template file. The purpose is to import an element from a file.

• FILENAME="filename". filename is the name of the file. This may be an URL, an absolute filename or a filename relative to the sitecatalog.
• ELEMENT="tag". tag is any element contained in the file we import from. SiteLite will attempt to extract the content of this element. It no such element exists in filename SiteLite will do no extraction. If no ELEMENT property is given, SiteLite will use the whole file. This is default.
• WRAPPER="wfilename". The import will be wrapped in the content of file wfilename before it is imported. The file wfilename must contain an element of this type <SL_BLOCK/> to indicated where the wrapped block should be placed within the wrapper-text. wfilename may be an URL, an absolute filename or a filename relative to the sitecatalog.
  Default is no wrapper.
• SHOWTAGS="OFF" | "ON". "ON" instructs SiteLite to replace all occurances of < and > with the approriate entities. This makes it possible to quote programcode or html(xml) code without corrupting the page. "OFF" is default.
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

<SL_IMPORT FILENAME="myarticle.xml" ELEMENT="INGRESS"/>

This tag may appear in a source file or a template file. The purpose is to fetch a file as the elements content.

• FILENAME="filename". filename is the name of the file. This may be an URL, an absolute filename or a filename relative to the sitecatalog.
• SHOWTAGS="OFF" | "ON". "ON" instructs SiteLite to replace all occurances of < and > with the approriate entities. This makes it possible to quote programcode or html(xml) code without corrupting the page. "OFF" is default.
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

<SL_PATCH FILENAME="mytext.txt"/>
<SL_PATCH FILENAME="myprogam.java" SHOWTAGS="ON"/>

The purpose is to place the value from the scriptline:
SITENAME:sitename.

APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to place the value from the scriptline:
SITEEDITOR:siteeditor.

APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to place the value from the scriptline:
SITEURL:siteurl.

APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to include the text which is associated with the page in the script as a PAGETIP-line.

No attributes.

The purpose is to place the name of this page.

The name is the second parameter on a pageline in the script.

• UNBREAK="ON" | "OFF" with "OFF" as default. "ON" will remove possible breaks (<br> or <br/>) in the pagename.

APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to place a reference or name of the author of the page, wich may be set for each page individually.

The author is the fifth, optional, parameter on a pageline in the script.

APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to place a message wich may be set for each page individually.

The message is the sixth, optional, parameter on a pageline in the script.

APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to facilitate simple popup-windows.

• FILENAME="filename". filename must be a reference to the page that should be displayed. This attribute Mandatory. The filename must be a full path relative to the page that initiates the popup-window.
• NAME="name". name may be any string that will appear as the text in the popup-reference. If omitted, the filename is used.
• STYLE="style". is the style you want to apply to the reference. Default is "codepop". This style is included in the standard stylesheet that comes with Sitelite and produces a gray button-like appearance. If style is "none", no style is applied.
• REF="ON/OFF". if ON, which is default, the code generated will be as shown below. This code is not acting good on right-mouseclicks. If OFF the code is based on mouseevent: "Onclick()" as shown below. Disadvantage is that you will not have a default link-appearance on cursor. On some browsers you may fix this with style.

<SL_POPUP FILENAME="apopfile.html" NAME ="a simple example" STYLE="astyle"/>

will produce the following code:

<span class="astyle">
<a href ="javascript:simplepopup('apopfile.html','CodePop','*')">
   a simple example</a>
</span>

<SL_POPUP FILENAME="apopfile.html" NAME ="a simple example" STYLE="astyle" REF="OFF"/>

will produce the following code:

<span class="astyle" Onclick()="javascript:simplepopup('apopfile.html','CodePop','*')">
   a simple example
</span>

If the referenced javascript function is not present (the string: "function simpepopup" does not exist) on the actual page, the following javacode is inserted:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
function simplepopup(url,wname,wstyle)
{
	if(wstyle=="*")
		wstyle='scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,width=600,height=600,status=0';
	newwindow=window.open(url, wname, wstyle);
	if (window.focus) {newwindow.focus()}
}
</script>

The code will produce a popupwindow which is allways in front. When called again the content will be swapped with the new file, and the popup will be brought in focus.

It is obviuos that you may write an other version of simplepopup to achive other effects. It is also obvious that you may use this function directly, without using SL_POPUP.

<SL_POPUP FILENAME="apopfile.html" NAME ="a simple example" STYLE="astyle"/>
<SL_POPUP FILENAME="apopfile.html" STYLE="astyle"/>
<SL_POPUP FILENAME="apopfile.html"/>
<SL_POPUP FILENAME="apopfile.html" NAME ="a simple example" STYLE="none"/>

The purpose is to place a link to another page within the site.

• PAGE="pageid". pageid may be any identification of a site, that is pagename, siterelative reference or even part of a pageref (uniqueness is your responsibiliy).
• TARGET="name". name may be any string. TARGET translates to target in HTML.

<SL_XREF PAGE="First page"/>

<SL_XREF PAGE="First page"/>a text</SL_XREF>

<SL_XREF PAGE="pages/page1.html"/>

<SL_XREF PAGE="pages/page1.html"/>a text</SL_XREF>

The purpose is to place a link to the next page.

The next page is the next when reading the scriptfile, disregarding all pages with level=0.

• FULL="OFF" | "ON" with "OFF" as default. OFF produces only the reference, like
  elements/page-n.html
  ON produces a full reference element, like
  <a href="elements/page-n.html">PageName</a>
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to place a link to the previous page.

The previous page is the previous when reading the scriptfile from the top, disregarding all pages with level=0.

• FULL="OFF" | "ON" with "OFF" as default. OFF produces only the reference, like:
  elements/page-n.html
  ON produces a full reference element, like
  <a href="elements/page-n.html">PageName</a>
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to place a link to the home page.

The home page is the first page in the script with level > 0.

• FULL="OFF" | "ON" with "OFF" as default. OFF produces only the reference, like
  #articles-sitelite-ver30-printable-elements-e-index
  ON produces a full reference element, like
  <a href="#articles-sitelite-ver30-printable-elements-e-index">HomePage</a>
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to place a link to the parent page.

The parent page is the first page above this page in the script with level > this page's level.

• FULL="OFF" | "ON" with "OFF" as default. OFF produces only the reference, like:
  elements/page-n.html
  ON produces a full reference element, like
  <a href="elements/page-n.html">PageName</a>
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to produce a linklist for this page containing the pages in the FRIENDS-line(s) in the script.

• COLS="n", with n as any number ≥ 0, instructs SiteLite to distribute the linklist in n columns. Default is n=1. If n=0 the entries will be placed on a line.
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.
• TARGET_FRAME="frame". Applies to framebased solutions. Instructs SiteLite to link to an other frame from this linklist.

The purpose is to insert a pagerelative table of contents (TOC)

The TOC will be a typical "left-column" TOC and include:
- all level 1 pages in the site
- all ancestors of the page
- the page itself
- all siblings of the page
- all children of the page

• BULLET="ON" | "OFF". instructs SiteLite to place a bullet, bullet.gif, in front of all entries. Default is "ON".
• HILITEBULLET="ON" | "OFF". instructs SiteLite to place a special bullet, hilitebullet.gif, in front of this page. Default is "OFF".
• TARGET_FRAME="frame". Applies to framebased solutions. Instructs SiteLite to link to an other frame from this TOC.
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

Each entry will be placed in a div-element with style: clevelx, where x is the level of the referenced page. The name of the present page will be styled with: aclevelx.

The purpose is to insert an exhaustive table of contents (TOC), a sitemap.

• COLS="n", with n as any number ≥ 0, instructs SiteLite to distribute the sitemap in n columns. Default is n=3. If n=0 the entries are put on a line.
• MIN_LEVEL="n" with n as any number > 0, instructs SiteLite to include only pages with level ≥ n. Default is n=1.
• MAX_LEVEL="n" with n as any number > 0, instructs SiteLite to include only pages with level ≤ n. Default is n=1000.
• TARGET_FRAME="frame". Applies to framebased solutions. Instructs SiteLite to link to an other frame from this TOC.
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

Each entry will be placed in a div-element with style: tlevelx, where x is the level of the referenced page.

The purpose is to insert a table of contents (TOC), which includes only children or siblings.

• COLS="n", with n as any number ≥ 0, instructs SiteLite to distribute the sitemap in n columns. Default is n=3. If n=0 the entries will be placed on a line.
• MEMBERS="CHILDREN" | "SIBLINGS". Default is "SIBLINGS".
• TARGET_FRAME="frame". Applies to framebased solutions. Instructs SiteLite to link to an other frame from this TOC.
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

Each entry will be placed in a div-element with style: tlevel0.

The purpose is to insert a pagelocal table of contents (TOC), in the page.

• SHOW="ON" | "OFF", instructs SiteLite to make or not make this pagelocal TOC. Se note below for default behaviour.
• WIDTH="n", with n as any number indicating the number of characters on a line. This is not a precise number and should be adjusted. Default is n=60.
• LEVEL="n", with n as a number in the range 2..6. This attribute instructs SiteLite to produce a TOC with heading n as entries.
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

NOTE that if SiteLite does not find a pagelocal toc-element in a page, it automatically places the following line immediately below the first heading 1 in the page:
<SL_LOCALTOC SHOW="ON" LEVEL="2" WIDTH="60" />
If you want to place it elsewhere or suppress it you must insert a proper localtoc-element yourself.

The local toc wil be placed in a paragrah with style: localtoc.

The purpose is to insert an exhaustive pagelocal table of contents (TOC), in the page. The toc is based on elements h1 .. h6.

• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The entries in the toc wil be placed in div-elements with styles tleveln, where n is the level of the entry.

The purpose is to insert an exhaustive pagelocal table of contents (TOC), in the page. The toc is based on elements h1 .. h6. This is done after elements of type SL_PRINTLIST has been effectuated.

• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The entries in the toc wil be placed in div-elements with styles tleveln, where n is the level of the entry.

The purpose is to insert a table of contents (TOC), that show this pages ancestors, including the homepage even if it is not an ancestor.

• REMOVESINGEL="ON" | "OFF", instructs SiteLite to remove or contain the trail if it is only one long. Default is "OFF".
• TARGET_FRAME="frame". Applies to framebased solutions. Instructs SiteLite to link to an other frame from this TOC.

The purpose is to insert an index with references to pages wich contain words that are marked as indexentries and/or words that appear in the indexwordfile stated in the INDEXWORDS - line in the script.

• COLS="n", with n any number > 0, instructs SiteLite to distribute the index in n columns. Default is 3.
• REFERENCE="ON" | "OFF", instructs SiteLite to produce or omit a link to the actual page where the indexentry occurs. Default is "ON".
• SORT="ON" | "OFF", instructs SiteLite to sort, or not, the indexentries. default is "ON".
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.
• INDEXNAME="indexname" where indexname is any name that identifies this index. Default name is index1.

Each keyword will be placed in a div-element with style: index_keyword, and each index-entry in a div-element with style: index_entry.

The purpose is to mark a word in the text that will be included in an index.

• WORD="word", with word as any text.
• INDEXNAME="indexname" where indexname is any name that identifies the index this word will be presented in. Default name is index1.

NOTE that the whole element is removed during pagebuild. Thus you should make separate elements to mark indexentries. Do not enclose a word in the running text in the element.

NOTE also that it is possible to instruct SiteLite to build indexes based on words in the file given in the INDEXWORDS - line in the script.

The purpose is to produce collections of material from the site.

• COLLNAME="collectionname", with collectionname as a text that matches the collectionname in the scriptline:
  COLLECTION:collectionname,left_bracket,right_bracket.
• REFERENCE="OFF" | "ON", with OFF as default. ON sets up the collected items as a references to the pages they were collected from.
• LINESEPARATOR="separator", with separator as any text. separator will be used to separate the contributions to the collection. Default is <br/>.
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to mark out the content that should be collected from this page when we aggregate a printpage.

No attributes

The purpose is to collect material from any selection of readybuilt pages to produce an aggregated page, usually with the purpose to make a printable page.

• PAGES="pagelist" | "ALL", with pagenamelist as a comma-separated list of pagenames or full page-filepaths.
  If you add a pluss-sign (+) as the last character in a filename, all child-pages are also included.
  Default is "ALL", which selects all pages with level > 0.
• TEXTONLY="ON" | "OFF". "ON" will instruct SiteLite to simply ignore all element-tags on the pages and only extract unformatted text. Default is "OFF".
• PAGETOC="ON" | "OFF". "ON" will instruct SiteLite to build a complete table of contents based on the 6 header elements in the assemled page. Default is "OFF".
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

SiteLite insists to leave its fingerprint somewhere in the site. You can control where with this element.

APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

You can also wrap this in a style of your liking.

The purpose is to insert the building date.

• LANGUAGE="ENGLISH" | "NORWEGIAN". Default is "ENGLISH".
• APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is to place the number of this page.

A pages number means the rank of the page as counted from top in the script, disregarding all pages with level=0.

APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

The purpose is insert the number of pages in the site.

All pages with level > 0 is counted

APPEND="OFF" | "ON" applies with "OFF" as default.

This element will be replaced with a link to the top of the page.

This element will be replaced with the comma separated list of keywords from the scriptline KEYWORDS.

Thinking XML

Think of the templates and the blockfiles as XML-files. SiteLite is in this context a tool for moving blocks among XML-files, merging, rearranging and splitting. The resulting files may or may not appear as XML-files. That is the tags may or may not be preserved, se bottom of page.

As a XML-tool SiteLite does not reckognize a full DOM-structure, and it does not bother about other namespaces than its own inherent namespace. It simply moves elements which it knows and produce a set of new elements (tocs, trails, indexs etc.). This of course limits the functionality, but it simplifies the basic operations it is designed for considerably.

If you like you may use any XML-tool to produce contentfiles, and you may use any XML-tool on the resulting pages. You may for instance make a dtd and use a dtd-sensible editor to produce blockfiles, and you may make a XSL-transform on the resulting pages.

Some browsers reckognise XML as legal content and together with a stylesheet they produce readable pages. Other browsers demand HTML. Most browsers will ignore tags in a HTML-page that is not defined HTML. It will however be a problem to validate such pages.

Thinking HTML

Think of the templates as HTML-files and the blockfiles as text/html. SiteLite was originally, and is still, foremost a tool for producing structures of HTML-pages where the layout and the content of each page may be prepared separately.

SiteLite 3 offers a lot of flexibility in tagging style to allow users to validate templates, resulting pages and even blockfiles at the level wanted. To achieve this SiteLite allows tagging as commented tags, se below.

Technical summary

Element may appear in comments or as pure elements, as short elements or complete elements with starttag and endtag.

  <tag/>
  <tag>content</tag>

  <!--tag/-->
  <!--tag-->content<!--/tag--> 

The scriptline

 OPTIONS:COMMENTED
 

tells SiteLite to expect commented tags. This yields all material in the site.

Most of the elements in the templates are "receiving" elements and in most cases the two forms, short or complete has the same effect, unless you use the APPEND property. Elements of the former short form are removed by SiteLite when the element is "filled". Elements of the second form are preserved. If the tags are in commented style the difference is not important from a validating point of view. The script line

 OPTIONS:KEEPTAGS 
 

stops the unconditionally removal of all traces of SiteLite in the resulting file.

Refs in the script

Pages and blocks in the script should allways be referenced relative to the sitecatalog or by an absolute address.

1,Pagename,P,pages/page-1.html
1,Pagename,P,pages\page-1.html
1,Pagename,P,../catb/page-1.html
1,Pagename,P,d:\acatalog\page-1.html
1,Pagename,,http://www.x.y/~b/cat/page-1.html,,N

are all legal pagelines.

The same rules apply for filenames in the elements SL_IMPORT and SL_PATCH.

X-Refs on pages

You may reference an other page in the site in two ways:

1. With normal HTML: <a href="pageid">pagename</a>
2. With normal the SiteLite tag: <SL_XREF PAGE="pagid"/>

Image Refs

References to images may be:

• By correct reference from the block the reference is edited in. In this case SiteLite will recalculate the address to be effective from the page the block is placed in. The advantage of this is that you may use the block as a complete page for other purposes.

• By correct reference from the page that the reference will end up in. In this case SiteLite will of do nothing.

• By reference relative to the sitecatalog.

  Note that a reference relative to the sitecatalog may refer to images outside the sitecatalog.

Standard

The basic templates that are automatically produced by SiteLite for a no-frame solution are the following:

• nf_p_template.html, for pages of type P.
  This is the normal templates which describes the majority of pages in a site.

• nf_i_template.html, for pages of type I.
  This is allmost identical to the P template. It is included to make it easy to produce a different first page, or entry page in the site.

• print_template.html, for pages of type PRINT.
  This is a page that wraps a collection of one or more pages, referred to as a print page.

• print_all_template.html, for pages of type PRINTALL.
  This is a page that wraps a collection of all pages in the site with a full table of contents.

Using templates

Consider a few examples:

• You want a page that displays a complete sitemap. The involved scriptlines may look like:

   1,SiteMap,P,p-sitemap.html
   BLOCKS:b-sitemap.html
   

  The file b-sitemap.html may look like:

   ..
   <SL_BLOCK>
   <h1>SiteMap</h1>
   <SL_TOC COLS="3"/>
   </SL_BLOCK>
   ...
   

• You want a printpage that involves all pages in the site. The involved scriptlines may look like:

   1,All Pages,PRINT,p-pall.html
   BLOCKS:b-pall.html
   

  The file b-pall.html may look like:

   ..
   <SL_BLOCK>
   <h1>All Pages</h1>
   <SL_PRINTLIST PAGES="ALL"/>
   </SL_BLOCK>
   ...
   

  assuming that the pages has one or more element of the type:

   <SL_PRINTABLE>
     the stuff to be extracted to the printpage
   </SL_PRINTABLE>
   

• You want to select material from a structured source. The involved scriptlines may look like:

   1,My Page,ARTICLE,p-mypage.html
   BLOCKS:b-mypage.html
   

  The Template are defined:

   ATEMPLATE:ARTICLE,templates/art_template.html
   

  The file art_template.html will contain:

   ..
   <h1><SL_HEADING/></h1>
    ...
   <SL_INGRESS/>
   ...
   <SL_BODY/>
   ...
   

  The file b-mypage.html will contain:

   <<SL_BLOCK TARGET="SL_HEADING">
   heading
   </SL_BLOCK>
   ...
   <<SL_BLOCK TARGET="SL_INGRESS">
   ingress
   </SL_BLOCK>
   ...
   <<SL_BLOCK TARGET="SL_BODY">
   body
   </SL_BLOCK>
   ...
   

Frames

SiteLite can easily be used to build and maintain frame based sites. You have all the freedom you would like to set up the framelayout. The easiest way to investigate frames in SiteLite is to build a new site with frames, Menu File - New, and check the Use Frames- box in the dialog box.

SiteLite suggests a simple solution with a frame structure:

SiteLite produces 4 page lines which describes the frame structure in the script:

  0,Frameset,FF,index.html
  0,Topframe,FT,top.html
  0,Leftframe,FL,left.html
  1,Home,FI,home.html
    BLOCKS:blocks\src_home.html

The three first page lines has level 0, and will thus never appear in tables of contents. The best thing is to investigate the four pages. It is important that the name given to the home-frame in the page Frameset matches the name of the page: home.

You will also see that SiteLite has a separate set of templates for frame-based sites. Their meaning and intended use should be evident from the names and the way they are used in the site SiteLite generates. Templates meant for frames have names starting with f_ as opposed to the templates for non-frame sites which begin with nf_. The predefined templates are:

• f_f_template.html for defining the framesets, type FF
• f_t_template.html for defining the top frame with the site title, type FT
• f_l_template.html for defining the left frame with table of contents, type FL
• f_i_template.html for defining the home page in the main frame, type FI
• f_c_template.html for defining a site map page in the main frame, type FC
• f_ix_template.html for defining a site index page in the main frame, type FIX
• f_p_template.html for defining any other page in the main frame, type FP

You are of course free to define your own templates, and your own frame structure.

Gifs

bullet.gif is a small image that is placed in front of pages in a table of contents. See element CONLIST for a description of how to turn it on or off. SiteLite hardcodes use of this image. May be edited, but should not be removed if you don't abandon the idea of a marker once and for all.

hiltebullet.gif is a small image that is used to mark the current page in a table of contents. See element CONLIST for a description of how to turn it on or off. SiteLite hardcodes use of this image. May be edited, but should not be removed if you don't abandon the idea of a marker once and for all.

logo.gif is the logo that appears in the top-let corner of a "standard" page. May be, and will most certainly be, edited. If you change the size of the logo, you should inspect the relevant templates to make sure it does not corrupt the layout.

navigare.gif is the small cluster of arrows that appears in the upper-right and lower-right corners of a page like ths one. If you change the dimensions of this, you must also change the corresponding image map in the relevant templates.

up.gif is the little arrow that brings you to the top of the page. You may edit this, but you should not delete it. SiteLite hardcodes this arrow together with a reference as a substitution for the <!--TOTOP/--> element. The reference depends on an anchor <a name="TopOfPage"></a> in the top of the template, or page.

pixel.gif is a small (1x1 pixels) transparent image that may be used to pad spaces in the pages. SiteLite does not hardcode any use this image, but it may be used in the templates. You may find it useful, since it is not possible to realise all layout plans with style sheets.

Stylesheet

SiteLite relies on cascading style sheets, and the file def.css is important. You will find the file in the catalog gfx, and there should be a reference to the file in all templates, typically by the line:
<link rel="STYLESHEET" href="gfx/def.css">
(the actual reference is correct by SiteLite during build.)

When SiteLite assembles lists and table of contents, it inserts styles as an integrated part of the lists. These styles are chosen and described in a way that allows the user maximum control of the appearance. Below is a list that explain their use and refer to the actual styles names in the style sheet.

marked as SL_CONLIST in the templates, is the table of content that are made for each page, and which normally appears in the left bar of the page. Each of the possible levels in this table is described with its own style. A page with level 3 is for instance described by SiteLite as:
<div class="clevel3">pagename and reference</div>
There are defined 11 clevel-types to match page levels. These are found in the style sheet as:
.clevel0
.clevel1
etc

There are a matching set of styles aclevel which are used to mark the current page, the page that owns the table of content.

The site map, marked as SL_TOC in the templates, have a structure that are like the SL_CONLIST. To make the freedom of choice as great as possible there are defined a parallel set of styles for this table of content. The styles are found as tlevel, 0 to 10.

The table of content that normally appears in the head of a page, with references to subsections in square brackets are controlled by the style: localtoc

Siblings or children. singletoc, and asingletoc for the active element.

The index is marked as SL_INDEX in the templates. An index consists of a series of keywords, each with a list of page references. The actual styles that are inserted by SiteLite are
<div class="index_keyword">keyword</div>
<div class="index_entry">pageref1</div>
<div class="index_entry">pageref2</div>
etc

If you use FRIENDS:-lines in the script, SiteLite expects to find a <SL_FRIENDS> -tag in the template. The actual list of pages are hard coded by SiteLite as:
<div class="friends">page name or reference</div>

These styles are introduced to match specific needs of SiteLite. Their use is not hardcoded, or forced, but they are generally useful. The indicated use refers to the "standard" templates. You are of course free to use them in another way, simply discard them or introduce new styles, when you construct your own templates.

Used to wrap the SL_SITENAME-element

Used to wrap the footer, including SL_SITEEDITOR, SL_PAGEAUTHOR, SL_DATE, SL_AMESSAGE elements. Offsets the content to match the main area on the page.

Used to wrap the footer, including SL_SITEEDITOR, SL_PAGEAUTHOR, SL_DATE, SL_AMESSAGE elements. No offset, used by frame pages and print pages.

If you inspect def.css you will find that there are some styles used to wrap predefined (PRE) contents. They are defined to document program code. You may use them, modified or not, for other purposes. They are included to show samples of some useful styling with blocks and background color.

You may find it usefull to make your own styles. Probably the best candidates are (sub)classes of div, p or pre.

To control the overall appearance of your pages, it is useful to be able to manipulate the appearance of general html-elements. The html-elements that are defined in the std style sheet are:

• BODY, defining styles for the page as a whole
• P, defining the style for general paragraphs
• A:link, defining style for links
• A:visited, links that have been visited
• A:active, the active link
• A:hover, when you move cursor over a link (Does not work for all browsers)
• H1, defining the style for heading, level 2
• H2, for heading level 2
• H3, for heading level 3
• H4, for heading 4
• UL, for unordered lists
• OL, for ordered lists
• TD, for table elements
• PRE, defining style for predefined text

You may choose to include more definitions at will.

The best way to investigate the possibilities of SiteLite is probably to get some inspiration from examples. Below you will find references to working sites built by SiteLite and you will find a set of small sites made solely for demonstration purposes.

Downloads

Neither me nor Ostfold College take any responsibility for any damage caused by the program or the use of it. SiteLite is downloaded and used completely at your own risk. Reasonable measures has been taken to ensure that what you download is what it is meant to be.

Updates

SITECATALOG:c:\mysite
...
BLOCKS:http://www.a.b.no/~c/d/e.html
	

c:\mysite\imported\www_a_b_no\c\d\e.html
	

Converting

SiteLite 3.0 offers an automatic upgrade of your site from version 2.0. When SiteLite reads a script without the line: SITEVERSION=3, it assumes that the script is a description of a site built with version 2. SiteLite inspects and attempts to update all templates and all blocks in the site, in addition to the script itself. SiteLite does not do anything with the style sheet file during update.

It is a good idea to make a backup copy of the site before you allow an automatic update.

Note the following:

1. The C-type template is abandoned. P-type is used in stead. You may want to introduce the C-type template by a ATEMPLATE-line in the script, or put the FULLTOC-element in the block.

2. Investigate the templates, and pay special attention to the SL_PREV,SL_NEXT,SL_HOME elements. The structure has changed and SiteLite does not convert this. Make a new site and inspect the "standard" templates to learn how to.

3. Investigate the stylesheet, and make sure you have all the hardcoded styles present. Make a new site and inspect the "standard" def.css file to check.

SiteLite has a small but dedicated group of users, and it has been possible have a constructive dialog with a few people during the development. Trond Løvereide, Håkon Tolsby, Gunnar Misund, Laila Kynningsrud and Håvard Blok Rask has all contributed constructively with suggestions for improvement and by reporting errors. Thanks.