.. include:: headings.inc
.. _html overview:
==================================
|phoenix_title| **HTML Overview**
==================================
The :mod:`wx.html` library provides classes for parsing and displaying HTML.
It is not intended to be a high-end HTML browser. If you are looking
for something like that try http://www.mozilla.org/.
:mod:`wxhtml` can be used as a generic rich text viewer - for example
to display a nice About Box (like those of GNOME apps) or to display
the result of database searching. There is a :class:`wx.FileSystem`
class which allows you to use your own virtual file systems.
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow` supports tag handlers. This means that
you can easily extend :mod:`html` library with new, unsupported
tags. Not only that, you can even use your own application-specific
tags!
There is a generic :class:`~wx.html.HtmlParser` class, independent of
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow`.
.. _html quick start:
HTML quick start
----------------
Displaying HTML
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Class :class:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow` (derived from
:class:`wx.ScrolledWindow`) is used to display HTML documents.
It has two important methods: :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow.LoadPage` and
:meth:`~wxhtml.HtmlWindow.SetPage`. LoadPage loads and displays HTML
file while SetPage displays directly the passed **string**. See the
example::
mywin.LoadPage("test.htm")
mywin.SetPage("htmlbody" \
"h1Error/h1" \
"Some error occurred :-H)" \
"/body/hmtl")
Setting up HtmlWindow
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Because :class:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow` is derived from
:class:`wx.ScrolledWindow` and not from :class:`wx.Frame`, it doesn't
have visible frame. But the user usually wants to see the title of
HTML page displayed somewhere and the frame's titlebar is the ideal
place for it.
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow` provides 2 methods in order to handle
this: :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow.SetRelatedFrame` and
:meth:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow.SetRelatedStatusBar`. See the example::
html = wx.html.HtmlWindow(self)
html.SetRelatedFrame(self, "HTML : %%s")
html.SetRelatedStatusBar(0)
The first command associates the HTML object with its parent frame
(this points to :class:`wx.Frame` object there) and sets the format of
the title. Page title "Hello, world!" will be displayed as "HTML :
Hello, world!" in this example.
The second command sets which frame's status bar should be used to
display browser's messages (such as "Loading..." or "Done" or
hypertext links).
Customizing HtmlWindow
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can customize :class:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow` by setting font size,
font face and borders (space between border of window and displayed
HTML). Related functions:
- :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow.SetFonts`
- :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow.SetBorders`
- :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow.ReadCustomization`
- :meth:`~wx,html.HtmlWindow.WriteCustomization`
The last two functions are used to store user customization info
:class:`wx.ConfigBase` stuff (for example in the registry under
Windows, or in a dotfile under Unix).
HTML Printing
--------------
The :mod:`wx.html` library provides printing facilities with several
levels of complexity. The easiest way to print an HTML document is to
use the :class:`~wx.html.HtmlEasyPrinting` class.
It lets you print HTML documents with only one command and you don't
have to worry about deriving from the :class:`wx.Printout` class at
all. It is only a simple wrapper around the
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlPrintout`, normal wxPython printout class.
And finally there is the low level class
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlDCRenderer` which you can use to render HTML into
a rectangular area on any DC.
It supports rendering into multiple rectangles with the same
width. (The most common use of this is placing one rectangle on each
page or printing into two columns.)
.. _help files format:
Help Files Format
------------------
:mod:`wx.html` library can be used to show an help manual to the user; in
fact, it supports natively (through :class:`~wx.html.HtmlHelpController`)
a reduced version of MS HTML Workshop format.
A **book** consists of three files: the header file, the contents file
and the index file.
You can make a regular zip archive of these files, plus the HTML and any
image files, for HTML (or helpview) to read; and the ``".zip"`` file can
optionally be renamed to ``".htb"``.
.. _.hhp files:
.. _.hhp file:
Header file (.hhp)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. highlight:: rst
The header file must contain these lines (and may contain additional
lines which are ignored)::
Contents file=filename.hhc
Index file=filename.hhk
Title=title of your book
Default topic=default page to be displayed.htm
All filenames (including the Default topic) are relative to the location of
the ``".hhp"`` file.
.. note::
For localization, in addition the ``".hhp"`` file may contain the line::
Charset=rfc_charset
which specifies what charset (e.g. "iso8859_1") was used in contents and
index files. Please note that this line is incompatible with MS HTML Help
Workshop and it would either silently remove it or complain with some error.
Contents file (.hhc)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. highlight:: html
Contents file has HTML syntax and it can be parsed by regular HTML parser. It
contains exactly one list (```` statement)::
You can modify value attributes of param tags. The *topic name* is name of
chapter/topic as is displayed in contents, *filename.htm* is the HTML page
name (relative to the ``".hhp"`` file) and *numeric_id* is optional - it is
used only when you use :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlHelpController.Display`.
Items in the list may be nested - one ```` statement may contain a
```` sub-statement::
Index file (.hhk)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Index files have same format as contents files except that ID params are
ignored and sublists are **not** allowed.
.. _input filter:
.. _input filters:
Input Filters
--------------
The :mod:`wx.html` library provides a mechanism for reading and displaying files of
many different file formats.
:meth:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow.LoadPage` can load not only HTML files but any known file. To
make a file type known to :class:`~wxzhtml.HtmlWindow` you must create a :class:`~wx.html.HtmlFilter`
filter and register it using :meth:`~html.HtmlWindow.AddFilter`.
.. _cells and containers:
Cells and Containers
---------------------
This article describes mechanism used by :class:`~wx.html.HtmlWinParser` and
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlWindow` to parse and display HTML documents.
Cells
~~~~~~
You can divide any text (or HTML) into small fragments. Let's call these
fragments **cells**. Cell is for example one word, horizontal line, image or
any other part of document. Each cell has width and height (except special
"magic" cells with zero dimensions - e.g. colour changers or font changers).
See :class:`~wx.html.HtmlCell`.
Containers
~~~~~~~~~~~
Container is kind of cell that may contain sub-cells. Its size depends on
number and sizes of its sub-cells (and also depends on width of window). See
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlContainerCell`, :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlCell.Layout`. This image shows the cells and
containers:
.. image:: _static/images/overviews/overview_html_contbox.png
:alt: overview_html_contbox.png
:align: center
Using Containers in Tag Handler
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlWinParser` provides a user-friendly way of managing containers. It is
based on the idea of opening and closing containers.
Use :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlWinParser.OpenContainer` to open new a container *within* an
already opened container. This new container is a *sub-container* of the old
one. (If you want to create a new container with the same depth level you can
call ``CloseContainer()``; ``OpenContainer()``; ).
Use :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlWinParser.CloseContainer` to close the container. This doesn't
create a new container with same depth level but it returns "control" to the
parent container. See explanation:
.. image:: _static/images/overviews/overview_html_cont.png
:alt: overview_html_cont.png
:align: center
There clearly must be same number of calls to OpenContainer as to CloseContainer.
Example
::::::::
.. highlight:: python
This code creates a new paragraph (container at same depth level) with "Hello, world!"::
myParser.CloseContainer()
c = myParser.OpenContainer()
myParser.AddText("Hello, ")
myParser.AddText("world!")
myParser.CloseContainer()
myParser.OpenContainer()
and here is image of the situation:
.. image:: _static/images/overviews/overview_html_hello.png
:alt: overview_html_hello.png
You can see that there was an opened container before the code was executed.
We closed it, created our own container, then closed our container and opened
new container.
The result was that we had *same* depth level after executing. This is
general rule that should be followed by tag handlers: leave depth level of
containers unmodified (in other words, number of OpenContainer and
CloseContainer calls should be same within :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlTagHandler.HandleTag` 's
body).
.. note::
Notice that it would be usually better to use
:meth:`~wx.html.HtmlContainerCell.InsertCell` instead of adding text to the parser
directly.
.. _tag handlers:
Tag Handlers
-------------
The :mod:`wx.html` library provides architecture of pluggable *tag* handlers. Tag
handler is class that understands particular HTML tag (or tags) and is able
to interpret it.
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlWinParser` has a static table of **modules**. Each module contains
one or more tag handlers. Each time a new :class:`~wx.html.HtmlWinParser` object is
constructed all modules are scanned and handlers are added to HtmlParser's
list of available handlers.
How it works
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Common tag handler's :meth:`~wx.html.HtmlTagHandler.HandleTag` method works in four
steps:
- Save state of parent parser into local variables
- Change parser state according to tag's params
- Parse text between the tag and paired ending tag (if present)
- Restore original parser state
See :class:`~wx.html.HtmlWinParser` for methods for modifying parser's state. In general
you can do things like opening/closing containers, changing colors, fonts etc...
Providing own tag handlers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
See the :mod:`wx.lib.wxpTag` on how to provide your own tag handlers.
Tag handlers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The handler is derived from :class:`~wx.html.HtmlWinTagHandler` (or directly from
:class:`~wx.html.HtmlTagHandler`).
.. _tags supported by wxhtml:
Tags supported by :mod:`html`
-----------------------------
:mod:`wx.html` is not a full implementation of HTML standard. Instead, it supports most
common tags so that it is possible to display *simple* HTML documents with
it. (For example it works fine with pages created in Netscape Composer or
generated by tex2rtf).
Following tables list all tags known to :mod:`wx.html`, together with supported
parameters.
A tag has general form of ``tagname`` param_1 param_2 ... param_n where
param_i is either ``paramname="paramvalue"`` or ``paramname=paramvalue`` -
these two are equivalent. Unless stated otherwise, :mod:`wx.html` is case-
insensitive.
Table of common parameter values
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We will use these substitutions in tags descriptions:
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| [alignment] | CENTER |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | LEFT |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | RIGHT |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | JUSTIFY |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| [v_alignment] | TOP |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | BOTTOM |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | CENTER |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| [color] | HTML 4.0-compliant colour specification |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| [fontsize] | -2 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | -1 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | +0 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | +1 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | +2 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | +3 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | +4 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | 1 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | 2 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | 3 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | 4 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | 5 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | 6 |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | 7 |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| [pixels] | integer value that represents dimension in pixels |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| [percent] | i% |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | where i is integer |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| [url] | an URL |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| [string] | text string |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| [coords] | c(1),c(2),c(3),...,c(n) |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | where c(i) is integer |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
List of supported tags
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| A | NAME=[string] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | HREF=[url] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | TARGET=[target window spec] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| ADDRESS | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| AREA | SHAPE=POLY |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | SHAPE=CIRCLE |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | SHAPE=RECT |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | COORDS=[coords] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | HREF=[url] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| BIG | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| BLOCKQUOTE | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| BODY | TEXT=[color] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | LINK=[color] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | BGCOLOR=[color] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| BR | ALIGN=[alignment] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| CENTER | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| CITE | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| CODE | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| DD | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| DIV | ALIGN=[alignment] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| DL | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| DT | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| EM | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| FONT | COLOR=[color] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | SIZE=[fontsize] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | FACE=[comma-separated list of facenames] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| HR | ALIGN=[alignment] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | SIZE=[pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | WIDTH=[percent|pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | NOSHADE |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| H1 | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| H2 | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| H3 | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| H4 | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| H5 | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| H6 | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| I | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| IMG | SRC=[url] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | WIDTH=[percent|pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | HEIGHT=[pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | ALIGN=TEXTTOP |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | ALIGN=CENTER |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | ALIGN=ABSCENTER |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | ALIGN=BOTTOM |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | USEMAP=[url] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| KBD | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| LI | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| MAP | NAME=[string] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| META | HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | CONTENT=[string] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| OL | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| P | ALIGN=[alignment] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| PRE | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| SAMP | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| SMALL | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| SPAN | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| STRIKE | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| STRONG | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| SUB | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| SUP | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| TABLE | ALIGN=[alignment] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | WIDTH=[percent|pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | BORDER=[pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | VALIGN=[v_alignment] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | BGCOLOR=[color] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | CELLSPACING=[pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | CELLPADDING=[pixels] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| TD | ALIGN=[alignment] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | VALIGN=[v_alignment] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | BGCOLOR=[color] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | WIDTH=[percent|pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | COLSPAN=[pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | ROWSPAN=[pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | NOWRAP |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| TH | ALIGN=[alignment] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | VALIGN=[v_alignment] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | BGCOLOR=[color] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | WIDTH=[percent|pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | COLSPAN=[pixels] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | ROWSPAN=[pixels] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| TITLE | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| TR | ALIGN=[alignment] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | VALIGN=[v_alignment] |
| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | BGCOLOR=[color] |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| TT | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| U | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| UL | |
+------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
List of supported styles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:mod:`wx.html` doesn't really have CSS support but it does support a few simple
styles: you can use ``"text-align"``, ``"width"``, ``"vertical-align"`` and
``"background"`` with all elements and for ``SPAN`` elements a few other
styles are additionally recognized:
- ``color``
- ``font-family``
- ``font-size`` (only in point units)
- ``font-style`` (only "oblique", "italic" and "normal" values are supported)
- ``font-weight`` (only "bold" and "normal" values are supported)
- ``text-decoration`` (only "underline" value is supported)