content/glyph/book/introduction.html
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<h2>Introduction</h2>
<hr />
<div id="content-body">
<div class="navigation"><a href="/glyph/book/index.html">Contents</a><a href="/glyph/book/license.html">→ License</a></div>
<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>
<p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
<div class="section">
<h3 id="h_2">Main Features</h3>
<div class="section">
<h4 id="h_3">Command Line Interface</h4>
<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>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4 id="h_4">Minimalist Syntax</h4>
<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>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4 id="h_5">Content Reuse</h4>
<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>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4 id="h_6">Automation of Common Tasks</h4>
<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>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4 id="h_7">Reference Validation</h4>
<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>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4 id="h_8">Extreme Extensibility</h4>
<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>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4 id="h_9">Convention over Configuration</h4>
<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>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h4 id="h_10">Free and Open Source</h4>
<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>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h3 id="h_11">Resources</h3>
<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>
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<div class="navigation"><a href="/glyph/book/index.html">Contents</a><a href="/glyph/book/license.html">→ License</a></div>
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