content/glyph/book/introduction.html
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 |
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Introduction - Glyph</title>
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Crimson+Text:400,400italic,600,600italic,700,700italic' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta name="author" content="Fabio Cevasco" />
<meta name="copyright" content="Fabio Cevasco" />
<meta name="robots" content="all, follow" />
<meta name="Revisit-After" content="2 Days" />
<meta name="language" content="en" />
<meta name="target_country" content="en-us" />
<meta name="country" content="United States" />
<meta name="readability-verification" content="XmaVzRjmcFL5Bb2Fu9TZVdDKzhA3apQdxexTB2rK"/>
<meta name="description" content="H3RALD - Fabio Cevasco's Web Site" />
<meta name="keywords" content="h3rald, fabio cevasco, glyph" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.png" type="image/png" />
<meta content="44.388041;9.073248" name="ICBM" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/styles/html5reset.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/styles/style.css" />
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi?key=ABQIAAAAr6RY1Z6dchG_sX9WDLSy3xRlq2n1sm52B5HDRR5tm6o8XM18FhR56xHNNH6CsX86uN5VoTrglpyOyQ" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/sevenup.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/sevenup_black.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">google.load("jquery", "1");</script>
<script src="/js/jquery-timeago.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/jquery-easing.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/jquery-fancybox.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/date.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/feeds.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/hyphenator.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/init.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/search.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
<section id="container">
<header class="page">
<nav class="home-link">
<a href="/">
<img src="/images/h3rald_small.png" alt="H3RALD" class="default"/>
<![if !IE]>
<img src="/images/h3rald_hover_small.png" alt="H3RALD" class="hover"/>
<![endif]>
</a>
</nav>
<nav class="section">
/<a href="/glyph/" rel="glyph">GLYPH</a>
</nav>
</header>
<article class="page glyph-book">
<header>
<hgroup>
<h1>Introduction</h1>
<h2>Glyph</h2>
</hgroup>
</header>
<section id="body-text" class="hyphenate glyph-book">
<nav class="navigation"> | <a href="/glyph/book/index.html">Contents</a> | <a href="/glyph/book/license.html">License</a></nav>
<p>Glyph is a <em>Rapid Document Authoring Framework</em>.</p>
<p>With Glyph, creating and maintaining any kind of document becomes as easy as… <em>programming</em>. Glyph enables you to minimize text duplication, focus on content rather than presentation, manage references seamlessly and automate tedious tasks through a simple but effective macro language, specifically geared towards customization and extensibility.</p>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_2">Main Features</h1></header>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_3">Command Line Interface</h1></header>
<p>Glyph is 100% command line. Its interface resambles <a href="http://git-scm.com/">Git’s</a> for its simplicity and power (thanks to the <a href="http://github.com/davetron5000/gli">gli</a> gem). Here are some example commands:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>glyph init</code> — to initialize a new Glyph project in the current (empty) directory.</li>
<li><code>glyph add introduction.textile</code> — to create a new file called <em>introduction.textile</em>.</li>
<li><code>glyph compile</code> — to compile the current document into a single <span class="caps">HTML</span> file.</li>
<li><code>glyph compile --auto</code> — to keep recompiling the current document every time a file is changed.</li>
<li><code>glyph compile -f pdf</code> — to compile the current document into <span class="caps">HTML</span> and then transform it into <span class="caps">PDF</span>.</li>
<li><code>glyph compile readme.glyph</code> — to compile a <em>readme.glyph</em> located in the current directory into a single <span class="caps">HTML</span> file.</li>
<li><code>glyph outline -l 2</code> — Display the document outline, up to second-level headers.</li>
<li><code>glyph stats</code> — Display project statistics.</li>
</ul>
</section>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_4">Minimalist Syntax</h1></header>
<p>Glyph syntax rules can be explained using Glyph itself:</p>
<div class="code">
<pre>
<code>
section[
@title[Something about Glyph]
txt[
You can use Glyph macros in conjunction
with _Textile_ or _Markdown_ to
produce HTML files effortlessly.
]
p[Alternatively, you can just use em[Glyph itself] to generate HTML tags.]
section[
@title[What about PDFs?]
@id[pdf]
p[
Once you have a single, well-formatted HTML
file, converting it to PDF is
extremely easy with a free 3rd-party
renderer like =>[http://www.princexml.com|Prince]
or =>[http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/|wkhtmltopdf].
]
]
]
</code>
</pre>
</div>
<p>The Glyph code above corresponds to the following <span class="caps">HTML</span> code:</p>
<div class="code">
<pre>
<code>
<div class="section">
<h2 id="h_10">Something about Glyph</h2>
<p>
You can use Glyph macros in conjunction with
<em>Textile</em> or <em>Markdown</em> to
produce HTML files effortlessly.
</p>
<p>
Alternatively, you can just use <em>Glyph itself</em>
to generate HTML tags.
</p>
<div class="section">
<h3 id="pdf">What about PDFs?</h3>
<p>
Once you have a single, well-formatted HTML
file, converting it to PDF is
extremely easy with a free 3rd-party renderer
like <a href="http://www.princexml.com">Prince</a>
or <a href="http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/\">wkhtmltopdf</a>.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</code>
</pre>
</div>
</section>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_5">Content Reuse</h1></header>
<p>Finding yourself repeating the same sentence over an over? Glyph allows you to create snippets. Within snippets. Within other snippets (and so on, for a long long time…) as long as you don’t define a snippet by defining itself, which would be kinda nasty (and Glyph would complain!):</p>
<div class="code">
<pre>
<code>
snippet:[entities|snippets and macros]
snippet:[custom_definitions|
p[Glyph allows you to define your own &[entities].]
]
&[custom_definitions]
</code>
</pre>
</div>
<p>…which results in:</p>
<div class="code">
<pre>
<code>
<p>Glyph allows you to define your own snippets and macros.</p>
</code>
</pre>
</div>
<p>If yourself dreaming about <em>parametric</em> snippets, just create your own macros (see the <a href="http://github.com/h3rald/glyph/blob/master/book/text/changelog.glyph">source</a> of Glyph’s changelog, just to have an idea).</p>
</section>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_6">Automation of Common Tasks</h1></header>
<p>If you’re writing a book, you shouldn’t have to worry about pagination, headers, footers, table of contents, section numbering or similar. Glyph understands you, and will take care of everything for you (with a little help from CSS3, sometimes).</p>
</section>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_7">Reference Validation</h1></header>
<p>Feel free to add plenty of links, snippets, bookmarks, … if Glyph doesn’t find something, it will definitely complain. Broken references are a thing on the past, and you don’t need to worry about it.</p>
</section>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_8">Extreme Extensibility</h1></header>
<ul>
<li>You miss a <code>!!!</code> macro to format really, <em>really</em> important things? Create it. In under 3 seconds, in Ruby or Glyph itself. And yes, you can use special characters, too.</li>
<li>You want your own, very special special <code>glyph create --everything</code> command to create all <em>you</em> need in a Glyph project? You can do it. Using your own Rake tasks, too.</li>
<li>You want Glyph to output <span class="caps">ODF</span> files? You can do it, and you’ll be able to run <code>glyph generate -f odf</code>. This would probably require a little more time, but it’s trivial, from a technical point of view.</li>
</ul>
</section>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_9">Convention over Configuration</h1></header>
<p>Put your text files in <code>/text</code>, your images in <code>/images</code>, add custom macros in a <code>macro</code> folder within your <code>/lib</code> folder… you get the picture: Glyph has its special places.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, you also have 1 (<em>one</em>) configuration file to customize to your heart’s content (with smart defaults).</p>
</section>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_10">Free and Open Source</h1></header>
<p>Glyph is 100% Open Source Software, developed using the Ruby Programming Language and licensed under the very permissive terms of the <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php"><span class="caps">MIT</span> License</a>.</p>
<p>If you have Ruby installed, just run <code>gem install glyph</code>. That’s all it takes.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section class="section">
<header><h1 id="h_11">Resources</h1></header>
<ul>
<li>Home Page: <a href="http://www.h3rald.com/glyph/">http://www.h3rald.com/glyph/</a></li>
<li>Repository: <a href="http://www.github.com/h3rald/glyph/">http://www.github.com/h3rald/glyph/</a></li>
<li>Bug Tracking: <a href="http://www.github.com/h3rald/glyph/issues">http://www.github.com/h3rald/glyph/issues</a></li>
<li>Development Wiki <a href="http://wiki.github.com/h3rald/glyph">http://wiki.github.com/h3rald/glyph</a></li>
<li>RubyGem Download <a href="http://www.rubygems.org/gems/glyph">http://www.rubygems.org/gems/glyph</a></li>
<li>Book (<span class="caps">PDF</span>): <a href="http://github.com/downloads/h3rald/glyph/glyph.pdf">http://github.com/downloads/h3rald/glyph/glyph.pdf</a></li>
<li>Book (Web): <a href="http://www.h3rald.com/glyph/book/">http://www.h3rald.com/glyph/book/</a></li>
<li>Reference Documentation: <a href="http://rubydoc.info/gems/glyph/">http://rubydoc.info/gems/glyph/</a></li>
<li>User Group: <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/glyph-framework">http://groups.google.com/group/glyph-framework</a></li>
</ul>
</section>
<nav class="navigation"> | <a href="/glyph/book/index.html">Contents</a> | <a href="/glyph/book/license.html">License</a></nav>
<nav id="sharing-buttons">
<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="horizontal" data-via="h3rald">Tweet</a>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<g:plusone size="medium"></g:plusone>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function() {
var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true;
po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);
})();
</script>
</nav>
</section>
</article>
<footer>
<section class="ads">
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-2871497824158668";
/* 728x90, created 9/10/10 */
google_ad_slot = "3963343166";
google_ad_width = 728;
google_ad_height = 90;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
</section>
<section>
<nav>
<a href="/about/">ABOUT</a>|<a href="/contact/">CONTACT</a>
</nav>
<p>H3RALD Web Site v8.1.2 © 2004 — 2011 <em>Fabio Cevasco</em></p>
</section>
</footer>
</section><!-- #container end -->
<!-- Start Google Analytics -->
<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-18587377-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>
<!-- End Google Analytics -->
<!-- Start of StatCounter Code -->
<script type="text/javascript">
var sc_project=6193656;
var sc_invisible=1;
var sc_security="57f7ee2a";
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/counter_xhtml.js"></script>
<!-- End of StatCounter Code -->
</body>
</html>
|