contents/glyph/book/introduction.html
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----- title: "Glyph - Introduction" content-type: page ----- <nav class="navigation"> | <a href="/glyph/book/index.html">Contents</a> | <a href="/glyph/book/license.html">License →</a></nav> <section class="section"> <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> <h3 id="h_2" class="toc">Main Features</h1> </header> <section class="section"> <header> <h3 id="h_3" class="toc">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> <h3 id="h_4" class="toc">Minimalist Syntax</h1> </header> <p>Glyph syntax rules can be explained using Glyph itself:</p> <div class="CodeRay"> <div class="code"> <pre><span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n1" name="n1">1</a></span>section[ <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n2" name="n2">2</a></span> @title[Something about Glyph] <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n3" name="n3">3</a></span> txt[ <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n4" name="n4">4</a></span>You can use Glyph macros in conjunction <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n5" name="n5">5</a></span>with _Textile_ or _Markdown_ to <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n6" name="n6">6</a></span>produce HTML files effortlessly. <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n7" name="n7">7</a></span> ] <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n8" name="n8">8</a></span> p[Alternatively, you can just use em[Glyph itself] to generate HTML tags.] <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n9" name="n9">9</a></span> section[ <span class="line-numbers"><strong><a href="#n10" name="n10">10</a></strong></span> @title[What about PDFs?] <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n11" name="n11">11</a></span> @id[pdf] <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n12" name="n12">12</a></span> p[ <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n13" name="n13">13</a></span>Once you have a single, well-formatted HTML <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n14" name="n14">14</a></span>file, converting it to PDF is <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n15" name="n15">15</a></span>extremely easy with a free 3rd-party <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n16" name="n16">16</a></span>renderer like =>[http://www.princexml.com|Prince] <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n17" name="n17">17</a></span>or =>[http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/|wkhtmltopdf]. <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n18" name="n18">18</a></span> ] <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n19" name="n19">19</a></span> ] <span class="line-numbers"><strong><a href="#n20" name="n20">20</a></strong></span>]</pre> </div> </div> <p>The Glyph code above corresponds to the following HTML code:</p> <div class="CodeRay"> <div class="code"> <pre><span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n1" name="n1">1</a></span><span class="tag"><div</span> <span class="attribute-name">class</span>=<span class="string"><span class="delimiter">"</span><span class="content">section</span><span class="delimiter">"</span></span><span class="tag">></span> <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n2" name="n2">2</a></span> <span class="tag"><h2</span> <span class="attribute-name">id</span>=<span class="string"><span class="delimiter">"</span><span class="content">h_10</span><span class="delimiter">"</span></span><span class="tag">></span>Something about Glyph<span class="tag"></h2></span> <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n3" name="n3">3</a></span> <span class="tag"><p></span> <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n4" name="n4">4</a></span> You can use Glyph macros in conjunction with <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n5" name="n5">5</a></span> <span class="tag"><em></span>Textile<span class="tag"></em></span> or <span class="tag"><em></span>Markdown<span class="tag"></em></span> to <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n6" name="n6">6</a></span> produce HTML files effortlessly. <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n7" name="n7">7</a></span> <span class="tag"></p></span> <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n8" name="n8">8</a></span> <span class="tag"><p></span> <span class="line-numbers"> <a href="#n9" name="n9">9</a></span> Alternatively, you can just use <span class="tag"><em></span>Glyph itself<span class="tag"></em></span> <span class="line-numbers"><strong><a href="#n10" name="n10">10</a></strong></span> to generate HTML tags. <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n11" name="n11">11</a></span> <span class="tag"></p></span> <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n12" name="n12">12</a></span> <span class="tag"><div</span> <span class="attribute-name">class</span>=<span class="string"><span class="delimiter">"</span><span class="content">section</span><span class="delimiter">"</span></span><span class="tag">></span> <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n13" name="n13">13</a></span> <span class="tag"><h3</span> <span class="attribute-name">id</span>=<span class="string"><span class="delimiter">"</span><span class="content">pdf</span><span class="delimiter">"</span></span><span class="tag">></span>What about PDFs?<span class="tag"></h3></span> <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n14" name="n14">14</a></span> <span class="tag"><p></span> <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n15" name="n15">15</a></span> Once you have a single, well-formatted HTML <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n16" name="n16">16</a></span> file, converting it to PDF is <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n17" name="n17">17</a></span> extremely easy with a free 3rd-party renderer <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n18" name="n18">18</a></span> like <span class="tag"><a</span> <span class="attribute-name">href</span>=<span class="string"><span class="delimiter">"</span><span class="content">http://www.princexml.com</span><span class="delimiter">"</span></span><span class="tag">></span>Prince<span class="tag"></a></span> <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n19" name="n19">19</a></span> or <span class="tag"><a</span> <span class="attribute-name">href</span>=<span class="string"><span class="delimiter">"</span><span class="content">http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/</span><span class="delimiter">"</span></span><span class="tag">></span>wkhtmltopdf<span class="tag"></a></span>. <span class="line-numbers"><strong><a href="#n20" name="n20">20</a></strong></span> <span class="tag"></p></span> <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n21" name="n21">21</a></span> <span class="tag"></div></span> <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n22" name="n22">22</a></span><span class="tag"></div></span></pre> </div> </div> </section> <section class="section"> <header> <h3 id="h_5" class="toc">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="CodeRay"> <div class="code"> <pre><span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n1" name="n1">1</a></span>snippet:[entities|snippets and macros] <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n2" name="n2">2</a></span>snippet:[custom_definitions| <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n3" name="n3">3</a></span> p[Glyph allows you to define your own &[entities].] <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n4" name="n4">4</a></span>] <span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n5" name="n5">5</a></span>&[custom_definitions]</pre> </div> </div> <p>...which results in:</p> <div class="CodeRay"> <div class="code"> <pre><span class="line-numbers"><a href="#n1" name="n1">1</a></span><span class="tag"><p></span>Glyph allows you to define your own snippets and macros.<span class="tag"></p></span></pre> </div> </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> <h3 id="h_6" class="toc">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> <h3 id="h_7" class="toc">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> <h3 id="h_8" class="toc">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> <h3 id="h_9" class="toc">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> <h3 id="h_10" class="toc">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> <h3 id="h_11" class="toc">Resources</h1> </header> <ul> <li>Home Page: <a href="/glyph/">/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="/glyph/book/">/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> </section> <nav class="navigation"> | <a href="/glyph/book/index.html">Contents</a> | <a href="/glyph/book/license.html">License →</a></nav> |