site-author/content/xdocs/index.xml - forrest - Git at Google

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 <!--
   Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
   contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
   this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
   The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
   (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
   the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

   Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
   distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
   WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
   See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
   limitations under the License.
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 <!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V2.0//EN" "http://forrest.apache.org/dtd/document-v20.dtd">
 <document>
   <header>
     <title>Welcome to Apache Forrest</title>
     <abstract>
       Apache Forrest&trade; software is a publishing framework that transforms
       input from various sources into a unified presentation in one or more
       output formats. The modular and extensible plug-in architecture of
       Apache Forrest is based on Apache Cocoon and the relevant industry
       standards that separate presentation from content. Forrest can generate
       static documents, or be used as a dynamic server, or be deployed by its
       automated facility.
     </abstract>
   </header>
   <body>
     <p>
       The Apache Forrest project uses the opensource
       <a href="site:license">Apache License 2.0</a> and adheres to
       <a href="site:way">open development</a> ideals.
       We are part of The Apache Software Foundation (<a href="ext:asf">ASF</a>).
     </p>
     <note>
       Please realise that Forrest is still pre-1.0 release version. It is
       certainly usable for those who are prepared to move with it. See more
       notes about <a href="#status">status</a> below.
     </note>
     <section>
       <title>Explanation and features</title>
       <p>
         Forrest is designed with the new user in mind. Much effort has gone into
         making the process of generating a new site <strong>easy</strong> and
         <strong>simple</strong>:
       </p>
       <ul>
         <li><strong>Step 1</strong>: Do <code>'forrest seed'</code> to populate
           the directory with template site structure and contents.</li>
         <li><strong>Step 2</strong>: Add content by editing docs in
           task-specific, presentation-neutral XML.</li>
         <li><strong>Step 3</strong>: Do <code>'forrest run'</code> then use
           the web browser to immediately review
           changes at <code>http://localhost:8888/</code></li>
         <li><strong>Step 4</strong>: Do <code>'forrest'</code> to generate the
           complete website from the XML sources.
           Various styles (known as skins) are available. Custom skins
           can be developed.</li>
         <li><strong>Step 5</strong>: For more information about installation
           and use, see the
           <a href="site:your-project">Using Forrest</a> guide.
         </li>
       </ul>
 <!-- FIXME: Needs review for 0.9  -->
       <note>
         The first time you run Forrest it may attempt to retrieve some plugins
         from the Internet (it depends on which distribution of Forrest you have
         installed). In some cases this will happen whenever a new plugin is
         specified, in other cases, for example when you have installed all
         plugins locally or have checked out the full source tree, the plugins
         will be retrieved from your local installation. In all cases once a
         plugin has been installed locally there is no need for Forrest to access
         the Internet. For more information see the
         <a href="site:pluginVersions/overview">plugins documentation</a>.
       </note>
       <p>
         Forrest's focus on low "startup cost" makes it ideal for rapid
         development of small sites, where time and budget constraints do not
         allow time-wasting HTML experiments. Of course, that same methodology
         can scale up to large projects. Your development team does not need Java&reg;
         experience, or even XML skills, to use Forrest. The framework lets you
         concentrate on content and design.
       </p>
       <p>
         By <strong>separating content from presentation</strong>, providing
         <strong>content templates</strong> and <strong>pre-written
         skins</strong>, Forrest is unequalled at enabling content producers to
         get their message out fast. This separation of concerns makes Forrest
         excellent to publish <strong>project documentation</strong> (notably
         software projects), <strong>intranets</strong>, and <strong>home
         pages</strong>, and anything else you can think of.
       </p>
       <p>
         Forrest is far from a quick and dirty solution however. Forrest is built
         on the world's leading XML application framework,
         <a href="ext:cocoon">Apache Cocoon</a>, which provides advanced
         users with extremely powerful publishing capabilities.
       </p>
       <ul>
         <li>Multiple task-specific source XML formats can be used
             (<a href="site:write-howto">How-To</a>,
           <a href="site:faq">
           <acronym title="Frequently Asked
               Questions">FAQ</acronym></a>,
           <a href="site:changes">changelogs</a> and
           <a href="site:todo">todo lists</a> supported natively).
           Source formats include: Apache xdocs xml format, plain html
           documents, some Wiki formats, a subset of DocBook, ...
         </li>
         <li>Multiple output formats supported, for example HTML and PDF (using
           <a href="ext:fop">Apache FOP</a>).
         </li>
         <li>SVG to PNG rendering (using <a href="ext:batik">Apache
             Batik</a>). Simply drop the SVG in the appropriate directory
             and it will be rendered as PNG.</li>
         <li>
           Transparent inclusion and aggregation of external content, like
           <a href="site:changes-rss">RSS feeds</a>.
         </li>
         <li>
           Anything else possible with the
           <a href="ext:cocoon/sitemap">Cocoon sitemap</a>.  Using database
           queries, <a href="ext:apache-stats">charting</a>, web services
           integration; the possibilities are constantly growing as Cocoon grows.
           See the <a href="ext:cocoon/features">Cocoon Features</a> list
           for the full suite of capabilities.
         </li>
         <li>
           Based on Java and XML standards, Forrest is platform-independent,
           making for a documentation system that is just as portable as the
           XML data that it processes.
         </li>
       </ul>
       <p>
         Unique amongst comparable documentation tools, Forrest generates sites
         that can run both <strong>interactively</strong> as a dynamic web
         application, or as statically rendered pages.
       </p>
       <p>
         This provides a path for site growth: start off small and static, and if
         dynamic features (user login, forms processing, runtime data, site
         search etc) are one day needed, these can be accommodated by switching
         to webapp mode.
       </p>
       <p>
         Running as a webapp has a major advantage during development: content
         can be written, and then the rendered output viewed almost instantly in
         a web browser. This <a href="site:your-project/webapp">webapp
         technique</a> enables Forrest's edit/review cycle to be faster than
         command-line transformation tools.
       </p>
     </section>
     <section id="status">
       <title>History and project status</title>
       <p>
         Apache Forrest was started in January 2002, with the major use-case
         being to create a consistent and efficient
         <a href="http://xml.apache.org/">xml.apache.org</a> group of
         project websites with a uniform, lightweight, easy-to-navigate layout
         and structure. In addition, Forrest was to be a Sourceforge-like project
         management tool, complementing <a href="ext:gump">Apache Gump</a>
         (hence the name 'Forrest').
         See the Apache XML and Apache Cocoon mail lists around end 2001 (e.g.
         <a href="http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xml-general/200112.mbox/%3C3C173108.CEF1A1E7@apache.org%3E">here</a>
         and
         <a href="http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xml-general/200112.mbox/%3C3C1D1333.4249357A@apache.org%3E">here</a> /
         <a href="http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/cocoon-dev/200112.mbox/%3C3C1D1333.4249357A@apache.org%3E">here</a>).
         Forrest <a href="site:guidelines/pmc">became</a> a top-level project
         in May 2004.
       </p>
       <p>
         The focus shifted for Apache Forrest to primarily be a generic
         documentation tool capable of meeting many needs. Certain relevant
         project management facilities are being added.
       </p>
       <p>
         Apache Forrest is currently progressing rapidly through a series of 0.x
         releases. It is certainly usable now (despite not yet being version
         1.x). See the growing list of <a href="site:live-sites">example
         sites</a> including many Apache sites.
       </p>
       <p>
         In general, prior to 1.0, ensuring quality of design will be considered
         more important than retaining backwards-compatibility. Users
         (particularly those with custom sitemaps and skins) should be aware that
         this is evolving software, and read the release notes carefully before
         upgrading. That said, we appreciate the commitment in time that adopters
         make, and will not make capricious or undocumented
         backwards-incompatible changes.
       </p>
       <p>
         Documentation on the Apache Forrest website exists for various versions
         including the latest release, the current development, and past
         releases. All versions of Forrest include their own copy of the
         documentation. There is also documentation for each plugin and the
         forrest seed site contains further examples and documentation (see
         <a href="site:faq/docs">FAQ</a>).
       </p>
     </section>
     <section id="news">
       <title>News and events</title>
       <p>
         See the <a href="site:events">events</a> list for more detail.
       </p>
       <ul>
 <!--
         <li>
          <a href="http://apachecon.com/">
            <img src="http://apache.org/images/ac2005eu_135x50.gif"
              alt="ApacheCon Europe 2005" width="135" height="50"/>
          </a>

          <a href="http://apachecon.com/2006/EU/">ApacheCon EU 2006</a>
          - Please make plans to join us for the conference in
          Dublin, Ireland on 26-30 June 2006.

          See our <a href="site:events">events</a> list for the schedule
          of Forrest meetings at ApacheCon.
         </li>
 -->
         <li>Apache Forrest 0.9 was released on 2011-02-07. Consolidation.
         </li>
         <li>Apache Forrest 0.8 was released on 2007-04-18.
           Locationmaps define the mapping from requests to locations,
           which enables content and resources to be located at various
           different sources.
         </li>
       </ul>
     </section>
     <section id="help">
       <title>Help Wanted!</title>
       <p>
         Apache Forrest is fairly new, and is in need of developers. If you know
         (or want to learn) any of XML, Ant, HTML, XSLT, or CSS, then you are
         qualified to help.
       </p>
       <p>
         As with all Apache projects, Forrest is a meritocracy; the more you put
         in, the more you get to define the project's future. See the
         <a href="site:contrib">"contributing"</a> page for more
         information.

       </p>
     </section>
   </body>
 </document>
	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
	<!--
	Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
	contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
	this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
	The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
	(the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
	the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

	http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

	Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
	distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
	WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
	See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
	limitations under the License.
	-->
	<!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V2.0//EN" "http://forrest.apache.org/dtd/document-v20.dtd">
	<document>
	<header>
	<title>Welcome to Apache Forrest</title>
	<abstract>
	Apache Forrest™ software is a publishing framework that transforms
	input from various sources into a unified presentation in one or more
	output formats. The modular and extensible plug-in architecture of
	Apache Forrest is based on Apache Cocoon and the relevant industry
	standards that separate presentation from content. Forrest can generate
	static documents, or be used as a dynamic server, or be deployed by its
	automated facility.
	</abstract>
	</header>
	<body>
	<p>
	The Apache Forrest project uses the opensource
	<a href="site:license">Apache License 2.0</a> and adheres to
	<a href="site:way">open development</a> ideals.
	We are part of The Apache Software Foundation (<a href="ext:asf">ASF</a>).
	</p>
	<note>
	Please realise that Forrest is still pre-1.0 release version. It is
	certainly usable for those who are prepared to move with it. See more
	notes about <a href="#status">status</a> below.
	</note>
	<section>
	<title>Explanation and features</title>
	<p>
	Forrest is designed with the new user in mind. Much effort has gone into
	making the process of generating a new site <strong>easy</strong> and
	<strong>simple</strong>:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li><strong>Step 1</strong>: Do <code>'forrest seed'</code> to populate
	the directory with template site structure and contents.</li>
	<li><strong>Step 2</strong>: Add content by editing docs in
	task-specific, presentation-neutral XML.</li>
	<li><strong>Step 3</strong>: Do <code>'forrest run'</code> then use
	the web browser to immediately review
	changes at <code>http://localhost:8888/</code></li>
	<li><strong>Step 4</strong>: Do <code>'forrest'</code> to generate the
	complete website from the XML sources.
	Various styles (known as skins) are available. Custom skins
	can be developed.</li>
	<li><strong>Step 5</strong>: For more information about installation
	and use, see the
	<a href="site:your-project">Using Forrest</a> guide.
	</li>
	</ul>
	<!-- FIXME: Needs review for 0.9 -->
	<note>
	The first time you run Forrest it may attempt to retrieve some plugins
	from the Internet (it depends on which distribution of Forrest you have
	installed). In some cases this will happen whenever a new plugin is
	specified, in other cases, for example when you have installed all
	plugins locally or have checked out the full source tree, the plugins
	will be retrieved from your local installation. In all cases once a
	plugin has been installed locally there is no need for Forrest to access
	the Internet. For more information see the
	<a href="site:pluginVersions/overview">plugins documentation</a>.
	</note>
	<p>
	Forrest's focus on low "startup cost" makes it ideal for rapid
	development of small sites, where time and budget constraints do not
	allow time-wasting HTML experiments. Of course, that same methodology
	can scale up to large projects. Your development team does not need Java®
	experience, or even XML skills, to use Forrest. The framework lets you
	concentrate on content and design.
	</p>
	<p>
	By <strong>separating content from presentation</strong>, providing
	<strong>content templates</strong> and <strong>pre-written
	skins</strong>, Forrest is unequalled at enabling content producers to
	get their message out fast. This separation of concerns makes Forrest
	excellent to publish <strong>project documentation</strong> (notably
	software projects), <strong>intranets</strong>, and <strong>home
	pages</strong>, and anything else you can think of.
	</p>
	<p>
	Forrest is far from a quick and dirty solution however. Forrest is built
	on the world's leading XML application framework,
	<a href="ext:cocoon">Apache Cocoon</a>, which provides advanced
	users with extremely powerful publishing capabilities.
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>Multiple task-specific source XML formats can be used
	(<a href="site:write-howto">How-To</a>,
	<a href="site:faq">
	<acronym title="Frequently Asked
	Questions">FAQ</acronym></a>,
	<a href="site:changes">changelogs</a> and
	<a href="site:todo">todo lists</a> supported natively).
	Source formats include: Apache xdocs xml format, plain html
	documents, some Wiki formats, a subset of DocBook, ...
	</li>
	<li>Multiple output formats supported, for example HTML and PDF (using
	<a href="ext:fop">Apache FOP</a>).
	</li>
	<li>SVG to PNG rendering (using <a href="ext:batik">Apache
	Batik</a>). Simply drop the SVG in the appropriate directory
	and it will be rendered as PNG.</li>
	<li>
	Transparent inclusion and aggregation of external content, like
	<a href="site:changes-rss">RSS feeds</a>.
	</li>
	<li>
	Anything else possible with the
	<a href="ext:cocoon/sitemap">Cocoon sitemap</a>. Using database
	queries, <a href="ext:apache-stats">charting</a>, web services
	integration; the possibilities are constantly growing as Cocoon grows.
	See the <a href="ext:cocoon/features">Cocoon Features</a> list
	for the full suite of capabilities.
	</li>
	<li>
	Based on Java and XML standards, Forrest is platform-independent,
	making for a documentation system that is just as portable as the
	XML data that it processes.
	</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
	Unique amongst comparable documentation tools, Forrest generates sites
	that can run both <strong>interactively</strong> as a dynamic web
	application, or as statically rendered pages.
	</p>
	<p>
	This provides a path for site growth: start off small and static, and if
	dynamic features (user login, forms processing, runtime data, site
	search etc) are one day needed, these can be accommodated by switching
	to webapp mode.
	</p>
	<p>
	Running as a webapp has a major advantage during development: content
	can be written, and then the rendered output viewed almost instantly in
	a web browser. This <a href="site:your-project/webapp">webapp
	technique</a> enables Forrest's edit/review cycle to be faster than
	command-line transformation tools.
	</p>
	</section>
	<section id="status">
	<title>History and project status</title>
	<p>
	Apache Forrest was started in January 2002, with the major use-case
	being to create a consistent and efficient
	<a href="http://xml.apache.org/">xml.apache.org</a> group of
	project websites with a uniform, lightweight, easy-to-navigate layout
	and structure. In addition, Forrest was to be a Sourceforge-like project
	management tool, complementing <a href="ext:gump">Apache Gump</a>
	(hence the name 'Forrest').
	See the Apache XML and Apache Cocoon mail lists around end 2001 (e.g.
	<a href="http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xml-general/200112.mbox/%3C3C173108.CEF1A1E7@apache.org%3E">here</a>
	and
	<a href="http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xml-general/200112.mbox/%3C3C1D1333.4249357A@apache.org%3E">here</a> /
	<a href="http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/cocoon-dev/200112.mbox/%3C3C1D1333.4249357A@apache.org%3E">here</a>).
	Forrest <a href="site:guidelines/pmc">became</a> a top-level project
	in May 2004.
	</p>
	<p>
	The focus shifted for Apache Forrest to primarily be a generic
	documentation tool capable of meeting many needs. Certain relevant
	project management facilities are being added.
	</p>
	<p>
	Apache Forrest is currently progressing rapidly through a series of 0.x
	releases. It is certainly usable now (despite not yet being version
	1.x). See the growing list of <a href="site:live-sites">example
	sites</a> including many Apache sites.
	</p>
	<p>
	In general, prior to 1.0, ensuring quality of design will be considered
	more important than retaining backwards-compatibility. Users
	(particularly those with custom sitemaps and skins) should be aware that
	this is evolving software, and read the release notes carefully before
	upgrading. That said, we appreciate the commitment in time that adopters
	make, and will not make capricious or undocumented
	backwards-incompatible changes.
	</p>
	<p>
	Documentation on the Apache Forrest website exists for various versions
	including the latest release, the current development, and past
	releases. All versions of Forrest include their own copy of the
	documentation. There is also documentation for each plugin and the
	forrest seed site contains further examples and documentation (see
	<a href="site:faq/docs">FAQ</a>).
	</p>
	</section>
	<section id="news">
	<title>News and events</title>
	<p>
	See the <a href="site:events">events</a> list for more detail.
	</p>
	<ul>
	<!--
	<li>
	<a href="http://apachecon.com/">
	<img src="http://apache.org/images/ac2005eu_135x50.gif"
	alt="ApacheCon Europe 2005" width="135" height="50"/>
	</a>

	<a href="http://apachecon.com/2006/EU/">ApacheCon EU 2006</a>
	- Please make plans to join us for the conference in
	Dublin, Ireland on 26-30 June 2006.

	See our <a href="site:events">events</a> list for the schedule
	of Forrest meetings at ApacheCon.
	</li>
	-->
	<li>Apache Forrest 0.9 was released on 2011-02-07. Consolidation.
	</li>
	<li>Apache Forrest 0.8 was released on 2007-04-18.
	Locationmaps define the mapping from requests to locations,
	which enables content and resources to be located at various
	different sources.
	</li>
	</ul>
	</section>
	<section id="help">
	<title>Help Wanted!</title>
	<p>
	Apache Forrest is fairly new, and is in need of developers. If you know
	(or want to learn) any of XML, Ant, HTML, XSLT, or CSS, then you are
	qualified to help.
	</p>
	<p>
	As with all Apache projects, Forrest is a meritocracy; the more you put
	in, the more you get to define the project's future. See the
	<a href="site:contrib">"contributing"</a> page for more
	information.

	</p>
	</section>
	</body>
	</document>