[albatross-users] Two questions (client-side production of static pages)

[Dave Cole]

>>>>> "Dave" == Dave Kuhlman <dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com> writes:

Dave> Sounds like you are asking for the template processing to be
Dave> more localized and isolated from the rest of Albatross
Dave> processing, so that it can be called independently and even used
Dave> in non-Albatross applications.

Most of the templating can be used in this way - apart from the
application functionality.

Dave> Are there other changes that should be made to make this more
Dave> convenient?  For example, should we be able to pass values to
Dave> the template processor in some way other than ctx.locals.

Dave> Well, I just looked, and the current mechanism seems pretty
Dave> convenient just the way it is.  Neat.  I'm interesting in
Dave> general text processing.  So a template processing capability
Dave> that can be called from Python code in other ways sounds like a
Dave> good idea to me.

Most of the template functionality should already be available
standalone.  All of the "Templates User Guide" in the manual concerns
using templates without Albatross application objects.  Maybe we need
to make this more clear in the manual.

>> Now, what I'd _really_ like is to have a number of templates which
>> are used to build each page.  In particular, a large chunk of
>> master.html is a sidebar table which is rather large: I'd love to
>> be able to break that out into a seperate template then bring it in
>> in either master.html or better yet, somepage.html (then I could
>> have a choice of sidebars for different pages, all of which use the
>> same master).
>> 
>> My instinct tells me there should be a way to do this but I haven't
>> been able to find it.  Can anyone clue me in?

Dave> Is this a request for "include" processing and an "al-include"
Dave> tag?  If so, you will need to define its semantics (processing).
Dave> Perhaps something like: "Includes are inserted, recursively,
Dave> before other template processing is performed."

Andrew has been experimenting with a more dynamic way to specify
macros.  I expect he could give you a small overview of the path he
has been following.

- Dave

-- 
http://www.object-craft.com.au