Zugg Software :: View topic - Initial Zeus documentation and tutorial posted!

Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2004 2:53 am

OK, this is really HOT off the presses. Here is a link to two files to begin documenting Zeus:

Overview of Zeus
Zeus Tutorial

There are probably some typos or mistakes, but this basically describes how to create one of the demo applications that is included with Zeus. Everything mentioned in the Tutorial actually works and basically shows the steps I used to make the demo web browser application.

There is a LOT more that isn't yet documented, and it often refers to the main "Zeus Documentation" which doesn't exist yet. Don't worry, I'm working on it! But this should start to give you an idea of how Zeus is actually currently working.

It's pretty exciting stuff, so I hope you like it. If you haven't programmed before, it might be a bit over your head. Don't worry, I'll have some simpler examples and tutorials eventually. And if you are an advanced programmer and don't think it's very complicated at all, don't worry, there are a LOT of cool features that are already implemented that I haven't talked about yet. More advanced tutorials to come also Wink

Have fun reading the tutorial. And yes, it's still looking good for an alpha release this week. If I have to, I'll cut short some of the other documentation.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

Looks great Zugg!
Now I'm looking forward to play with Zeus even more. Smile

A few things to note in the tutorial:

Seems you are missing the opening <html> tags in the CDATA sections for the labels in the splash window and the about window.

Typo: When explaining the definition of the about window, you say that the window is named "Above"

Hint: You can coerce notepad into giving a file the extension you want by surrounding the filename in double quotes (eg. "mydemo.zml")

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 12:16 am

Nope, the text for the <label> control doesn't need an <html> tag. It's always in HTML mode. I need to document this because it doesn't implement the full set of HTML tags and also has some added features for stuff like gradient backgrounds. It comes from a 3rd party.

Thanks for the other tips and typo.

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 12:20 am

Opps, never mind, I see the <html> tag you are talking about. The <label> tag used to be called <html> and I didn't change all of the references in the tutorial. Thanks for noticing!

Adept Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 224 Location: USA

Think I found a typo:

From this url: http://www.zuggsoft.com/emobius/zeus_tutorial.htm

In XML, the taq names and attribute names can be anything. The tags used in Zeus are described in the Zeus documentation and we'll see some examples later in this document. As new objects and features are added to Zeus, new tags and attributes are recognized. Any unrecognized tag or attribute is ignored by Zeus.

Should that be: In XML, the tag instead of taq?

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 7:01 am

Yep, thanks. Surprised the spellchecker didn't flag that one...is "taq" a word?

Nevermind, it *was* flagged, I just didn't notice ;)

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 7:07 am

All documentation has been consolidated. The main link for eMobius and Zeus information and documentation is: http://www.emobius.com

Beginner Joined: 18 Oct 2000 Posts: 29 Location: Sweden

But WHY use HTML tags in that XML document? Wouldn't it be much better to use some sort of styling instead, as that would enable separate content and layout in a much cleaner way?
The example I talk about is the one with bold and italic fonts in the splash screen. CSS and similar techniques wors great for XML data too.

Adept Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 224 Location: USA

Why not let us use XSL why you are at it!

Sarcasm, I am happy with what's there so far :)

Adept Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 224 Location: USA

Typo:

URL: http://www.zuggsoft.com/emobius/aboutem.htm

Reference:

Does eMöbius "phone home" all the time to validate it's license?
No. eMöbius will contact the remote eLicense database to verify your registration code the first time your purchase it. After that it will not contact the eLicense servers again. If you reformat or change computer hardware, then you might need to Unlicense and relicense the software and when this happens, it *will* need to contact eLicense again.

That is the third question from the bottom.

I think it should read:

....database to verify your registration code the first time you purchase it.

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 7:11 pm

The HTML has nothing to do with XML. XML only defines the "structure" of the user interface. HTML is NOT XML and therefore cannot be embedded normally in an XML document. For example, the simple tag in HTML would have to be changed to to be recognized as valid XML by the parser.

But it has nothing to do with the parser at all. It has to do with the capabilities of the "rendering engine" that is used to display the TEXT LABELS. This is currently done via a set of 3rd party components that only recognize a subset of HTML tags for making labels more useful. You don't need an entire robust HTML engine in order to add some nice functionality to labels, and labels do not need to be that complicated.

There *WILL* be a full HTML rendering engine (for displaying email message content, for example) that will have the tag <HTML>. There will also be an HTML editor component. The current tutorial simply shows basic HTML functionality in a Text Label.

Zeus actually fully supports XSL already. But it's not clear what you'd use that for. But the HTML Label control does not support CSS or any kind of styling.

So, you need to separate in your mind the use of XML to define the user interface layout, and the use of other protocols, such as HTML, in the individual controls.

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 8:53 pm

By the way, if anyone out there is an expert on XML and XSL and has any ideas on how XSL might be used with Zeus, let me know. What what I can tell, XSL (and CSS for that matter) is geared towards taking an XML file and determining how to *render* or *display* it. That doesn't make any sense in Zeus. The XML file in Zeus is only used to determine the *structure* of your application...the rendering is done by the Theme Engine in Zeus that determines how an Edit box, or Checkbox, or Text Label, is displayed to the user.

Adept Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 224 Location: USA

Yeah I was being sarcastic :)

XSL is to XML what CSS is to HTML, from my understanding.

Did you fix that typo Zugg? or did I read it wrong.

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2004 3:56 am

I got the typo. It will be in tonights update.

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 12:04 am

Updated this thread to point the links to the www.emobius.com site.

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 12:37 am

I started adding documentation on various components and their properties. More coming soon. Go to http://www.emobius.com/emobius/zeus_ref.htm

Wanderer Joined: 09 Oct 2000 Posts: 81 Location: France

quote:
Originally posted by Zugg
For example, the simple tag in HTML would have to be changed to to be recognized as valid XML by the parser.

Actually, an XHTML has been defined (http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/) which is basically HTML documents that are correct XML documents (i.e. must be since all tags must be closed and you cannot any longer have dirty syntax such as some text) I think some browsers (actually smartphone edition of pocket IE, or at least its early versions) actually requires documents to be formatted using XHTML

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 6:32 pm

Yes, that is true and I understand that. But as I said, the <label> component is from a 3rd party and only understands and parses HTML, not XHTML. So it doesn't recognize for example.

And none of this will be an issue when the Zeus Development Environment is written since you'll just write HTML code for the label and it will handle all of the CDATA stuff behind the scenes. You only need to deal with CDATA and stuff like that if you are "hand editing" the ZML files, which is really only for hard-core developers who don't want to use other tools.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

Notepad is what I use for writing all of my HTML files. Smile

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

quote:
Originally posted by Kjata

Notepad is what I use for writing all of my HTML files.

You know that that is one of the flame baits? Very Happy

Of course you use an editor [8D]

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2004 9:04 pm

Ahh yes, but the challenge for me as a developer is to make the ZDE *so* nice that you *want* to use it instead of Notepad Wink

But I shouldn't worry about that now. I probably won't even start coding the ZDE until eMobius at least has a beta version first. For now I'm doing XML all in Notepad too (well, ok, I'm using the Delphi IDE...but the XML file is still just treated as a text file).

Wanderer Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 76 Location: USA

XSLT is quite powerful when used correctly. It's very much like a scripting language. You can have it display certain parts of an XML document based upon certain criteria, or have it run through a list of XML nodes and display them in a standardized way. But how you would use this practicly in Zeus, I have no clue.

Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 12:53 am

quote:

But how you would use this practicly in Zeus, I have no clue.

Hee...exactly Wink

I'm played with XSLT and it looks great for formatting XML into HTML for various web output from things like queries and such. But it doesn't look that useful for Zeus at this point. But that's fine.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

quote:
Originally posted by Kjata

Notepad is what I use for writing all of my HTML files.

Before I bought visual studio I used to code my MUD using notepad and cygwin to compile hehehe... about 6 months I persevered with that. I used to use notepad for web pages too, but now I use ultra edit.

Magician Joined: 09 Oct 2003 Posts: 459 Location: USA

quote:
Originally posted by Rainchild

I used to use notepad for web pages too, but now I use ultra edit.

Isn't it such a pretty little text editor? Very Happy