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<title>GTML - an HTML pre-processor</title>
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"GTML is a simple yet powerful HTML pre-processor, which has a lot of
features to design AND maintain entire web sites. It's syntax is very
close to the C language preprocessor one. Some of its features are: use
of macros, conditionnal processing, file inclusion, sitemap generation
and much more. It is written in perl.">
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<b>GTML - an HTML pre-processor</b>
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<a name="toc2"></a>
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<ul>
<li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a>
<li><a href="#how">How does <code>GTML</code> work ?</a>
<li><a href="#you">Is <code>GTML</code> for you ?</a>
<li><a href="#features"><code>GTML</code> features.</a>
<li><a href="#download">Downloading <code>GTML</code></a>
<li><a href="#running">Running <code>GTML</code></a>
<li><a href="#other">Other HTML pre-processors</a>
<li><a href="#license">Terms of license</a>
<li><a href="#history">A little bit of <code>GTML</code> history</a>
</ul>
<p><hr>
<a name="intro"></a>
<p>HTML is a powerful markup language for individual Web pages, but it
has some serious limitations for maintaining entire Web <em>sites</em>
(i.e. a collection of Web pages which needs to be kept consistent).
<p><code>GTML</code> is an HTML pre-processor which adds some extra features
specially designed for maintaining multiple Web pages.
<a name="how"></a>
<h2>How does it work?</h2>
<p>You embed <code>GTML</code> commands among the HTML in your source files.
<code>GTML</code> reads and processes the <code>GTML</code> commands, but leaves the
rest of the text unchanged (so it will work straight away on your
existing Web pages).
<p>HTML files generated by <code>GTML</code> are just like any other HTML files.
Because <code>GTML</code> doesn't attempt to interpret your HTML commands in
any way, it's fully compatible with <em>all</em> versions of HTML, and
doesn't require any specific browser or server.
<a name="you"></a>
<h2>Is <code>GTML</code> for you?</h2>
<p>If you write the HTML in your Web pages by hand using a simple text
editor, then you'll find <code>GTML</code> useful. If, on the other hand,
you use a sophisticated graphical tool to generate your HTML, you
probably won't be able to use <code>GTML</code>. There are three reasons for this:
<ul>
<li>Your sophisticated tool won't understand the <code>GTML</code>
commands, and might even complain violently about them.
<li><code>GTML</code> operates in a command-line <em>batch</em> mode, and your
sophisticated tool probably operates from a graphical environment.
<li>The <em>source</em> for <code>GTML</code> is in files ending in <strong>.gtm</strong>
(or <strong>.gtml</strong>), and it generates the <strong>.html</strong>
files. Your sophisticated tool probably generates the <strong>.html</strong>
files itself.
</ul>
<a name="features"></a>
<h2>Features</h2>
<p>Here are some of the things you can do with <code>GTML</code>:
<ul>
<li>Create a <em>project file</em> with the names of all your Web pages, so
you can update them all with one simple click or command.
<li>Process only files which sources have changed directly, or with the help
of makefiles.
<li>Generate a <code>makefile</code> to control the process of your Web pages,
based on their dependencies.
<img src="new.gif" alt="[** NEW **]">
<li>Give a specific alias to a filename, useable as constants, so that it is
easy to move files and have links preserved.
<li>Specify a tree-like hierarchy of Web pages, so you can add Next,
Previous and Up links automatically to your site.
<li>Automatically generate a map of your site, with the possibility of
customizing the way this table of contents will look like.
<img src="new.gif" alt="[** NEW **]">
<li>Use named constants for HTML fragments to save typing, ensure
consistency and make changes easily.
<li>Use environment variables as named constants.
<li>Include header, footer and other common files into all your HTML
files. <em>This doesn't require Server-Side Includes</em>.
<li>Include timestamps (in any format you like) to show the time of last
process, or of last modification.
<li>Use conditional commands to create different versions of the output
under different circumstances.
<li>Generate output to different directories to generate different versions
of your site (for example, a Frames version and a non-Frames version).
<li>Change extensions of output files from <strong>.html</strong> to whatever
you want, so that you may, for instance, use MultiViews options of
Apache server, or create non-HTML files.
<img src="new.gif" alt="[** NEW **]">
<li>Guard special characters `<', `>' and `&' in normal text so
that they don't get confused with HTML commands.
<li>Define your own characters translations, so that you may easily input
your non-ASCII characters into <code>GTML</code> source.
<img src="new.gif" alt="[** NEW **]">
<li>Embed <code>Perl</code> or <code>shell</code> code into your source, so
that you may easily generate pages with computed information.
<img src="new.gif" alt="[** NEW **]">
<li>Generate pages with all superfluous HTML code removed, so that readers
retrieve them faster and may save bandwidth.
<img src="new.gif" alt="[** NEW **]">
</ul>
<p>All the <code>GTML</code> features and commands are described on the
<a href="gtml_ref.html"><code>GTML</code> Reference page</a>.
<a name="download"></a>
<h2>Downloading <code>GTML</code></h2>
<p><code>GTML</code> is written in Perl. If you don't have Perl, it's easy to
<a href="http://www.perl.com/pace/pub/perldocs/latest.html">obtain it</a> on
<a href="http://www.perl.com">perl.com</a>.
<p>There are two methods to download <code>GTML</code>:
<ul>
<li><a href="gtml">Download <code>GTML</code></a> Perl script, and save it to a file called
<code><strong>gtml.pl</strong></code>. <em>If you're running this under UNIX, edit
the first line to point to the location of your version of
Perl</em>, and give the execute right to the file.
<li>Download <code>GTML</code> archives containing Perl script as well as
documentations. Archives are available in
<a href="ftp://ftp.lifl.fr/pub/users/beaufils/gtml/gtml.zip">zip format</a>
or <a href="ftp://ftp.lifl.fr/pub/users/beaufils/gtml/gtml.tar.gz">gzipped tar format</a>.
</ul>
<p>The home page of <code>GTML</code> is at <code><strong><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtml/">http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtml/</a></strong></code>,
and archives may be found at <code><strong><a href="ftp://ftp.lifl.fr/pub/users/beaufils/gtml/">ftp://ftp.lifl.fr/pub/users/beaufils/gtml/</a></strong></code>.
<a name="running"></a>
<h2>Running <code>GTML</code></h2>
<p><code>GTML</code> source files end in <strong>.gtm</strong> (or <strong>.gtml</strong>), not
<strong>.html</strong>. If you're using <code>GTML</code> on existing HTML files, simply
rename them with the ending <strong>.gtm</strong> (or <strong>.gtml</strong>).
<p><code>GTML</code> is run from the command line, like this:
<pre>
perl gtml.pl fred.gtm harry.gtm bill.gtm
</pre>
<p>(The UNIX version won't need the <code>Perl</code> at the front, so long as
the script is executable.)
<p>The output of this command will be in <code><strong>fred.html</strong></code>,
<code><strong>harry.html</strong></code> and <code><strong>bill.html</strong></code>.
<p>If you have a <a href="gtml_ref.html#project"><code>GTML</code> project file</a>,
you include this on the command line. In this case, it's not necessary to list
any of the files in the project as well.
<p>Remember that you <a href="gtml_ref.html#optiond">can use <code>-D</code></a> on the
command line to create named constants. You can have as many <code>-D</code>
options as you like. Make sure they appear <em>before</em> the file names to
which they apply. For example, if you say:
<pre>
perl gtml.pl -DNAME=Fred fred.gtm harry.gtm -DTYPE=car bill.gtm
</pre>
then <code>NAME</code> is defined for all three files and <code>TYPE</code>
is defined for <code><strong>bill.gtm</strong></code> only.
<p>By default, <code>GTML</code> will try to process some
<a href="gtml_ref.html#project">project file</a>. It will look at these <em>configuration</em>
files in this order:
<ul>
<li><code><strong>$HOME/.gtmlrc</strong></code>
<li><code><strong>$HOME/gtml.conf</strong></code>
<li><code><strong>.gtmlrc</strong></code>
<li><code><strong>gtml.conf</strong></code>
</ul>
<p>Thoses files, if they exist, are parsed before command line is processed.
<p>You may have a look at the source of the documentation pages of <code>GTML</code> in
the <a href="src">source directory</a>. The project file is called
<a href="src/gtml.gtp"><code><strong>gtml.gtp</strong></code></a>.
<a name="other"></a>
<h2>Other HTML pre-processors</h2>
<p>Here is a list of other HTML pre-processors that I know of, in
case <code>GTML</code> will not satisfy your needs:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://chakotay.ist.org">Chpp</a>
<li><a href="http://frontier.userland.com">Frontier</a>
<li><a href="http://www.metahtml.com">Meta-HTML</a>
<li><a href="http://www.php.net">PHP</a>
<li><a href="http://www.qml.org/">QML</a>
<li><a href="http://artho.com/webtools">Webtools</a>
<li><a href="http://www.engelschall.com/sw/wml/">WML</a>
<li><a href="http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1474/wpp">Wpp</a>
</ul>
<a name="license"></a>
<h2>Licensing</h2>
<p><code>GTML</code> is distributed under the <a href="COPYING">GNU General Public License</a>
(GPL).
<p>Copyright © 1996-1999
<a href="http://www.pobox.com/~gihan">Gihan Perera</a>
(<a href="mailto:gihan@pobox.com">gihan@pobox.com</a>)
<p>Copyright © 1999
<a href="http://www.lifl.fr/~beaufils">Bruno Beaufils</a>
(<a href="mailto:beaufils@lifl.fr">beaufils@lifl.fr</a>)
<p>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version.
<p>This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public License</a>
for more details.
<a name="history"></a>
<h2>Some history</h2>
<p>For a long time I was looking for a way of maintaining some of the sites
that I set up for the research team which I am member of. I wanted to get a
tool which would enable me to easily change the look and feel of all pages of
a site, and easily move pages of a site from one location to another.
<p>I then used all my favourite search engines on the web, and found some
pages, describing such tools. I tried some. They all missed something, from ease
of use, to important features. When I tried <code>GTML</code>, from Gihan, I found
it was pretty cool, but lacking some important features that I needed.
<p>I wrote to Gihan asking him to add those features which I needed, since I
had no Perl programming skill. He told me that he doesn't have time to do that
in the near future. So I decided to read his code, and to learn Perl with his
script.
<p>The script was pretty well written and I learnt Perl, or at least understand
how <code>GTML</code> worked very fast. It was then easy to add the features that I needed in it. I then asked Gihan if he would mind if I distribute <code>GTML</code> under the
GNU General Public License, since his license policy was not as open as GPL,
and he accepted.
<p>Then I just updated some of the docs, prepared an archive, in the
<a href="http://www.gnu.org">GNU</a> spirit, and that was it.
<p>My biggest question was to understand where the name of the tool come from,
and after some reflexions I got two possible answers:
<ul>
<li>`<code><strong>G</strong></code>' is the letter just before H, and <code>GTML</code> source production
comes just before HTML file one.
<li>`<code><strong>G</strong></code>' is the first letter of Gihan's first name.
</ul>
<p>Well this is not a question anymore, Gihan told me the truth. Guess
what? I found it: the first of my two previous hypotheses is the right
one. (Well I hope that as time goes by it will be interpreted as GNU
<code>:-)</code>
<p>After I distributed it on my web pages, and after announcing it only on
<a href="http://www.freshmeat.net">Freshmeat</a>,
I got some feedback from users coming from all around the world. I added some
features which were asked of me, but realized that the source of the script
needed some reorganization, and that there were some bugs in <code>GTML</code>.
<blockquote>
I have done this source reorganization, and so have been able to fix bugs,
and add a lot of fancy features. So now I'm waiting for users' feedback, in
order to verify that I did not add bugs <code>:-)</code>, and that <code>GTML</code> is now
sufficiently stable.
</blockquote>
<p>In one month or so I hope to be able to say that it does. So I
<em>really</em> need your help for that, please <em>give me some feedback!</em>.
<p>I will not add any features, before the next <em>stable</em> release.
<p>I hope my version of <code>GTML</code> will help you as it helps me.
<p>--Bruno, <em>31 August 1999</em>
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<a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtml/">GTML home page</a><br>
<em>Last modification: 1999/9/12 at 19:44</em><br>
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Copyright © 1996-1999 <a href="http://www.pobox.com/~gihan">Gihan Perera</a>
(<a href="mailto:gihan@pobox.com">gihan@pobox.com</a>)<br>
Copyright © 1999 <a href="http://www.lifl.fr/~beaufils">Bruno Beaufils</a>
(<a href="mailto:beaufils@lifl.fr">beaufils@lifl.fr</a>)<br>
Copyright © 2004 <a href="http://home.comcast.net/~andrex">Andrew E. Schulman</a>
(<a href="mailto:schulman@users.sourceforge.net">schulman@users.sourceforge.net</a>)<br>
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