mirror of
https://github.com/ganelson/inform.git
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148 lines
11 KiB
HTML
148 lines
11 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>What This Module Does</title>
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<link href="../docs-assets/Breadcrumbs.css" rel="stylesheet" rev="stylesheet" type="text/css">
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<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width initial-scale=1">
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-gb">
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<link href="../docs-assets/Contents.css" rel="stylesheet" rev="stylesheet" type="text/css">
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<link href="../docs-assets/Progress.css" rel="stylesheet" rev="stylesheet" type="text/css">
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<link href="../docs-assets/Navigation.css" rel="stylesheet" rev="stylesheet" type="text/css">
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<link href="../docs-assets/Fonts.css" rel="stylesheet" rev="stylesheet" type="text/css">
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<link href="../docs-assets/Base.css" rel="stylesheet" rev="stylesheet" type="text/css">
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<link href="../docs-assets/Colours.css" rel="stylesheet" rev="stylesheet" type="text/css">
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</head>
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<body class="commentary-font">
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<nav role="navigation">
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<h1><a href="../index.html">
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<img src="../docs-assets/Inform.png" height=72">
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</a></h1>
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<ul><li><a href="../index.html">home</a></li>
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</ul><h2>Compiler</h2><ul>
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<li><a href="../structure.html">structure</a></li>
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<li><a href="../inbuildn.html">inbuild</a></li>
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<li><a href="../inform7n.html">inform7</a></li>
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<li><a href="../intern.html">inter</a></li>
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<li><a href="../services.html">services</a></li>
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</ul><h2>Other Tools</h2><ul>
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<li><a href="../inblorbn.html">inblorb</a></li>
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<li><a href="../indocn.html">indoc</a></li>
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<li><a href="../inform6.html">inform6</a></li>
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<li><a href="../inpolicyn.html">inpolicy</a></li>
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<li><a href="../inrtpsn.html">inrtps</a></li>
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<li><a href="../extensions.html">extensions and kits</a></li>
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</ul><h2>Repository</h2><ul>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/ganelson/inform"><img src="../docs-assets/github.png" height=18> github</a></li>
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</ul><h2>Related Projects</h2><ul>
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<li><a href="../../../inweb/docs/index.html">inweb</a></li>
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<li><a href="../../../intest/docs/index.html">intest</a></li>
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</ul>
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</nav>
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<main role="main">
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<!--Weave of 'What This Module Does' generated by Inweb-->
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<div class="breadcrumbs">
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<ul class="crumbs"><li><a href="../index.html">Home</a></li><li><a href="../services.html">Services</a></li><li><a href="index.html">html</a></li><li><a href="index.html#P">Preliminaries</a></li><li><b>What This Module Does</b></li></ul></div>
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<p class="purpose">An overview of the html module's role and abilities.</p>
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<ul class="toc"><li><a href="P-wtmd.html#SP1">§1. Prerequisites</a></li><li><a href="P-wtmd.html#SP2">§2. Purpose</a></li><li><a href="P-wtmd.html#SP3">§3. Custom HTML link protocols</a></li><li><a href="P-wtmd.html#SP5">§5. Localisation</a></li></ul><hr class="tocbar">
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<p class="commentary firstcommentary"><a id="SP1" class="paragraph-anchor"></a><b>§1. Prerequisites. </b>The html module is a part of the Inform compiler toolset. It is
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presented as a literate program or "web". Before diving in:
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</p>
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<ul class="items"><li>(a) It helps to have some experience of reading webs: see <a href="../../../inweb/docs/index.html" class="internal">inweb</a> for more.
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</li><li>(b) The module is written in C, in fact ANSI C99, but this is disguised by the
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fact that it uses some extension syntaxes provided by the <a href="../../../inweb/docs/index.html" class="internal">inweb</a> literate
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programming tool, making it a dialect of C called InC. See <a href="../../../inweb/docs/index.html" class="internal">inweb</a> for
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full details, but essentially: it's C without predeclarations or header files,
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and where functions have names like <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">Tags::add_by_name</span></span> rather than <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">add_by_name</span></span>.
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</li><li>(c) This module uses other modules drawn from the compiler (see <a href="../structure.html" class="internal">structure</a>), and also
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uses a module of utility functions called <a href="../../../inweb/docs/foundation-module/index.html" class="internal">foundation</a>.
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For more, see <a href="../../../inweb/docs/foundation-module/P-abgtf.html" class="internal">A Brief Guide to Foundation (in foundation)</a>.
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</li></ul>
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<p class="commentary firstcommentary"><a id="SP2" class="paragraph-anchor"></a><b>§2. Purpose. </b>Many functions of the Inform toolset involve the generation of HTML in some
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way, but almost all of that work is actually done by the <a href="../../../inweb/docs/foundation-module/index.html" class="internal">foundation</a> module.
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If you're interested in how HTML pages are made, how tags are opened and closed,
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and such, see <a href="../../../inweb/docs/foundation-module/5-htm.html" class="internal">HTML (in foundation)</a> and <a href="../../../inweb/docs/foundation-module/5-ee.html" class="internal">Epub Ebooks (in foundation)</a>. All of that
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code is general-purpose.
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</p>
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<p class="commentary">By contrast, the <a href="index.html" class="internal">html</a> module is very much a part of the Inform compiler
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and provides highly Inform-specific functions needed to make the intranet-like
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miniature websites it generates on the fly — problem pages, the Index, the
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extensions documentation.
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</p>
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<ul class="items"><li>(a) clickable links to positions in source text, opening the Source panel
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in the Inform GUI apps as needed — see <a href="2-sl.html#SP2" class="internal">SourceLinks::link</a>;
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</li><li>(b) paste buttons which, when clicked, insert text into the Source panel,
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or which open certain files or folders — see <a href="2-pb.html" class="internal">Paste Buttons</a>;
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</li><li>(c) renders Inform extension documentation text to HTML — see
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<a href="2-dr.html#SP9" class="internal">DocumentationRenderer::set_body_text</a> for the body of an extension or of one
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of its examples, and <a href="2-dr.html#SP7" class="internal">DocumentationRenderer::table_of_contents</a> for the TOC at
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the top.
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</li></ul>
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<p class="commentary firstcommentary"><a id="SP3" class="paragraph-anchor"></a><b>§3. Custom HTML link protocols. </b>This seems a useful place to document something which the Inform GUI apps
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must provide. These render index, problem and extension mini-website pages
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in embedded web browser views: for example, Inform on MacOS is essentially
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running a copy of Safari (or rather, its underlying engine WebKit) under
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the hood to display these. The material displayed consists of standard web
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pages, except that there are two custom "transport protocols" or "URL schemas".
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</p>
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<p class="commentary">Protocols like this go under a number of names, partly because there are many
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subtly different ideas here which only experts can distinguish (see
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_layer" class="external">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_layer</a> for the entrance to the
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rabbit-hole). To us, anyway, protocols are the prefixes of URLs which end
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with a colon — all browsers recognise a standard set of these, of which <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">http:</span></span>
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<span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">https:</span></span> and <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">file:</span></span> are by far the most commonly used.
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</p>
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<p class="commentary">Inform uses two non-standard ones in these internal pages, and so the GUI app
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must implement them for its embedded web engine:
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</p>
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<ul class="items"><li>(a) <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">source:</span></span> is used in link <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">href</span></span>s to make source text references — see <a href="2-sl.html" class="internal">Source Links</a>;
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</li><li>(b) <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">inform:</span></span> is used both for links to internal or external pages generated
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by Inform, and also for image <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">src</span></span>s. It behaves just like <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">http:</span></span>, except
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that it derives the location of a file from the given URL in a different way.
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</li></ul>
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<p class="commentary firstcommentary"><a id="SP4" class="paragraph-anchor"></a><b>§4. </b>The reason <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">inform:</span></span> is needed is that HTML files generated by Inform have
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no way to know the relative URLs necessary to access e.g. icon images for
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the World index, which will be in different places in the file system on
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different Inform apps. More formally, the specification of <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">inform:</span></span> is that —
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</p>
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<ul class="items"><li>(a) <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">inform://...</span></span> is interpreted as a reference to one of the built-in images,
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i.e., to wherever the app has internally stashed the Inform distribution's
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directory <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">resources/Imagery</span></span>. Barring errors in Inform, or in the app, this
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should never 404.
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</li><li>(b) For any path <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">*</span></span>, <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">inform://Extensions/*</span></span> should be fetched as <span class="extract"><span class="extract-syntax">*</span></span> in the
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external resources area — that is, the place to which the app is installing
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new extensions. If no file was found, the link should simply do nothing:
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the application is required not to produce a 404 error page, or to
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blank out the page currently showing.
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</li></ul>
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<p class="commentary firstcommentary"><a id="SP5" class="paragraph-anchor"></a><b>§5. Localisation. </b>This module also contains a very simple system for "localisation" of text,
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that is, enabling the user to output text in multiple human languages. (Inform
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makes heavy use of this in the Index.) This may not appear at first to have
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anything to do with HTML, but in fact we will mainly use it when generating
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web pages in the Index, so it has some conveniences for stylistic markup as well.
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</p>
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<p class="commentary">See <a href="2-lcl.html" class="internal">Localisation</a> for details.
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</p>
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<nav role="progress"><div class="progresscontainer">
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<ul class="progressbar"><li class="progressprevoff">❮</li><li class="progresscurrentchapter">P</li><li class="progresscurrent">wtmd</li><li class="progresssection"><a href="P-htitm.html">htitm</a></li><li class="progresschapter"><a href="1-hm.html">1</a></li><li class="progresschapter"><a href="2-sl.html">2</a></li><li class="progressnext"><a href="P-htitm.html">❯</a></li></ul></div>
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</nav><!--End of weave-->
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</main>
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</body>
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</html>
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