body-index.html - forrest - Git at Google

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 <tocitems>
 <tocitem level="1" href="#Introduction" title="Introduction"></tocitem>
 <tocitem level="1" href="#User-friendly" title="User-friendly"></tocitem>
 <tocitem level="1" href="#Powerful" title="Powerful">
 <tocitem level="2" href="#Static+or+Dynamic" title="Static or Dynamic"></tocitem>
 </tocitem>
 <tocitem level="1" href="#History" title="History"></tocitem>
 <tocitem level="1" href="#status" title="Project status and website status"></tocitem>
 <tocitem level="1" href="#news" title="News and events"></tocitem>
 <tocitem level="1" href="#help" title="Help Wanted!"></tocitem>
 </tocitems>
 <!--
   Copyright 2002-2005 The Apache Software Foundation or its licensors,
   as applicable.

   Licensed 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,
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 --><meta-data></meta-data><div id="content">
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 <div id="skinconf-podlink"></div>
 <div id="skinconf-txtlink"></div>
 <div id="skinconf-pdflink"></div>
 <div id="disable-font-script"></div>
 <h1>Welcome to Apache Forrest</h1>
 <div id="skinconf-toc-page"></div>

 <a name="N1000D"></a><a name="Introduction"></a>
 <div class="skinconf-heading-1">
 <h1>Introduction</h1>
 </div>
 <div class="section">
 <p>
         Apache Forrest is a publishing framework that transforms
         input from various sources into a unified presentation
         in one or more output formats. The modular and extensible
         plugin architecture is based on Apache Cocoon and relevant
         standards, which separates presentation from content.
         Forrest can generate static documents, or be used as a
         dynamic server, or be deployed by its automated facility.
       </p>
 <div class="note">
 <div class="label">Note</div>
 <div class="content">
         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.
       </div>
 </div>
 </div>


 <a name="N1001E"></a><a name="User-friendly"></a>
 <div class="skinconf-heading-1">
 <h1>User-friendly</h1>
 </div>
 <div class="section">
 <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 <span class="codefrag">'forrest seed'</span> 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 <span class="codefrag">'forrest run'</span> then use
           the web browser to immediately review
           changes at <span class="codefrag">http://localhost:8888/</span>

 </li>

 <li>
 <strong>Step 4</strong>: Do <span class="codefrag">'forrest'</span> 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="docs_0_70/your-project.html">Using Forrest</a> guide.
         </li>

 </ul>
 <div class="note">
 <div class="label">Note</div>
 <div class="content">
         The first time you run Forrest it will attempt to retrieve some plugins
         from the Internet. This will happen whenever a new plugin is specified. For more
         information see the <a href="pluginDocs/index.html">plugins documentation</a>.
       </div>
 </div>
 <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>
 </div>

 <a name="N1007B"></a><a name="Powerful"></a>
 <div class="skinconf-heading-1">
 <h1>Powerful</h1>
 </div>
 <div class="section">
 <p>
         Forrest is far from a quick and dirty solution however.  Forrest is
         built on the world's leading XML application framework,
         <a href="http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/">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="docs_0_70/howto/">How-To</a>,
           <a href="docs_0_70/faq.html"><acronym title="Frequently Asked Questions">FAQ</acronym></a>,
           <a href="docs_0_70/changes.html">changelogs</a> and
           <a href="docs_0_70/todo.html">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="http://xml.apache.org/fop/">Apache FOP</a>).
         </li>

 <li>SVG to PNG rendering (using <a href="http://xml.apache.org/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="docs_0_70/changes.rss">RSS feeds</a>.
         </li>

 <li>
           Anything else possible with the
           <a href="http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/userdocs/concepts/sitemap.html">Cocoon sitemap</a>.  Using database
           queries, <a href="http://people.apache.org/~vgritsenko/stats/">charting</a>, web services
           integration; the possibilities are constantly growing as Cocoon grows.
           See the <a href="http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/features.html">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>
 <a name="N100C7"></a><a name="Static+or+Dynamic"></a>
 <div class="skinconf-heading-2">
 <h2>Static or Dynamic</h2>
 </div>
 <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="docs_0_70/your-project.html#webapp">webapp technique</a>
           enables Forrest's edit/review cycle to be faster than command-line
           transformation tools.
         </p>
 </div>


 <a name="N100DF"></a><a name="History"></a>
 <div class="skinconf-heading-1">
 <h1>History</h1>
 </div>
 <div class="section">
 <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="http://gump.apache.org/">Apache Gump</a> (hence
         the name 'Forrest').
       </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>
 </div>


 <a name="N100F4"></a><a name="status"></a>
 <div class="skinconf-heading-1">
 <h1>Project status and website status</h1>
 </div>
 <div class="section">
 <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="live-sites.html">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.
         To view it, do 'cd site-author; forrest run' and visit
         http://localhost:8888/ in your browser.
         The <a href="http://forrest.apache.org/">Apache Forrest website</a> is updated
         manually as needed, while we develop the
         <a href="proposal-asf-forrestbot.html">forrestbot</a> deployment facility.
       </p>
 </div>

 <a name="N10110"></a><a name="news"></a>
 <div class="skinconf-heading-1">
 <h1>News and events</h1>
 </div>
 <div class="section">
 <p>See the <a href="events.html">events</a> list for more detail.
       </p>
 <ul>

 <li>
          <!--
          <link href="http://apachecon.com/">
            <img src="http://apache.org/images/ac2005eu_135x50.gif"
              alt="ApacheCon Europe 2005" width="135" height="50"/>
          </link>
          -->

 <a href="http://apachecon.com/">ApacheCon US 2005</a>
          - Please make plans to join us for the conference in
          San Diego, California, USA on 10-14 December 2005.
          See our <a href="events.html">events</a> list for the schedule
          of Forrest meetings at ApacheCon.
         </li>

 <li>Apache Forrest 0.7 was released on 2005-06-23.
           An architecture for Plugins which enables a smaller Forrest
           core and the ability to add new features in a modular way.
         </li>

 </ul>
 </div>

 <a name="N10131"></a><a name="help"></a>
 <div class="skinconf-heading-1">
 <h1>Help Wanted!</h1>
 </div>
 <div class="section">
 <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="contrib.html">"contributing"</a> page for more
         information.
       </p>
 </div>

 </div>
	<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
	<tocitems>
	<tocitem level="1" href="#Introduction" title="Introduction"></tocitem>
	<tocitem level="1" href="#User-friendly" title="User-friendly"></tocitem>
	<tocitem level="1" href="#Powerful" title="Powerful">
	<tocitem level="2" href="#Static+or+Dynamic" title="Static or Dynamic"></tocitem>
	</tocitem>
	<tocitem level="1" href="#History" title="History"></tocitem>
	<tocitem level="1" href="#status" title="Project status and website status"></tocitem>
	<tocitem level="1" href="#news" title="News and events"></tocitem>
	<tocitem level="1" href="#help" title="Help Wanted!"></tocitem>
	</tocitems>
	<!--
	Copyright 2002-2005 The Apache Software Foundation or its licensors,
	as applicable.

	Licensed 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.
	--><meta-data></meta-data><div id="content">
	<div id="skinconf-printlink"></div>
	<div id="skinconf-xmllink"></div>
	<div id="skinconf-podlink"></div>
	<div id="skinconf-txtlink"></div>
	<div id="skinconf-pdflink"></div>
	<div id="disable-font-script"></div>
	<h1>Welcome to Apache Forrest</h1>
	<div id="skinconf-toc-page"></div>

	<a name="N1000D"></a><a name="Introduction"></a>
	<div class="skinconf-heading-1">
	<h1>Introduction</h1>
	</div>
	<div class="section">
	<p>
	Apache Forrest is a publishing framework that transforms
	input from various sources into a unified presentation
	in one or more output formats. The modular and extensible
	plugin architecture is based on Apache Cocoon and relevant
	standards, which separates presentation from content.
	Forrest can generate static documents, or be used as a
	dynamic server, or be deployed by its automated facility.
	</p>
	<div class="note">
	<div class="label">Note</div>
	<div class="content">
	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.
	</div>
	</div>
	</div>


	<a name="N1001E"></a><a name="User-friendly"></a>
	<div class="skinconf-heading-1">
	<h1>User-friendly</h1>
	</div>
	<div class="section">
	<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 <span class="codefrag">'forrest seed'</span> 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 <span class="codefrag">'forrest run'</span> then use
	the web browser to immediately review
	changes at <span class="codefrag">http://localhost:8888/</span>

	</li>

	<li>
	<strong>Step 4</strong>: Do <span class="codefrag">'forrest'</span> 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="docs_0_70/your-project.html">Using Forrest</a> guide.
	</li>

	</ul>
	<div class="note">
	<div class="label">Note</div>
	<div class="content">
	The first time you run Forrest it will attempt to retrieve some plugins
	from the Internet. This will happen whenever a new plugin is specified. For more
	information see the <a href="pluginDocs/index.html">plugins documentation</a>.
	</div>
	</div>
	<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>
	</div>

	<a name="N1007B"></a><a name="Powerful"></a>
	<div class="skinconf-heading-1">
	<h1>Powerful</h1>
	</div>
	<div class="section">
	<p>
	Forrest is far from a quick and dirty solution however. Forrest is
	built on the world's leading XML application framework,
	<a href="http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/">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="docs_0_70/howto/">How-To</a>,
	<a href="docs_0_70/faq.html"><acronym title="Frequently Asked Questions">FAQ</acronym></a>,
	<a href="docs_0_70/changes.html">changelogs</a> and
	<a href="docs_0_70/todo.html">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="http://xml.apache.org/fop/">Apache FOP</a>).
	</li>

	<li>SVG to PNG rendering (using <a href="http://xml.apache.org/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="docs_0_70/changes.rss">RSS feeds</a>.
	</li>

	<li>
	Anything else possible with the
	<a href="http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/userdocs/concepts/sitemap.html">Cocoon sitemap</a>. Using database
	queries, <a href="http://people.apache.org/~vgritsenko/stats/">charting</a>, web services
	integration; the possibilities are constantly growing as Cocoon grows.
	See the <a href="http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/features.html">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>
	<a name="N100C7"></a><a name="Static+or+Dynamic"></a>
	<div class="skinconf-heading-2">
	<h2>Static or Dynamic</h2>
	</div>
	<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="docs_0_70/your-project.html#webapp">webapp technique</a>
	enables Forrest's edit/review cycle to be faster than command-line
	transformation tools.
	</p>
	</div>


	<a name="N100DF"></a><a name="History"></a>
	<div class="skinconf-heading-1">
	<h1>History</h1>
	</div>
	<div class="section">
	<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="http://gump.apache.org/">Apache Gump</a> (hence
	the name 'Forrest').
	</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>
	</div>


	<a name="N100F4"></a><a name="status"></a>
	<div class="skinconf-heading-1">
	<h1>Project status and website status</h1>
	</div>
	<div class="section">
	<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="live-sites.html">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.
	To view it, do 'cd site-author; forrest run' and visit
	http://localhost:8888/ in your browser.
	The <a href="http://forrest.apache.org/">Apache Forrest website</a> is updated
	manually as needed, while we develop the
	<a href="proposal-asf-forrestbot.html">forrestbot</a> deployment facility.
	</p>
	</div>

	<a name="N10110"></a><a name="news"></a>
	<div class="skinconf-heading-1">
	<h1>News and events</h1>
	</div>
	<div class="section">
	<p>See the <a href="events.html">events</a> list for more detail.
	</p>
	<ul>

	<li>
	<!--
	<link href="http://apachecon.com/">
	<img src="http://apache.org/images/ac2005eu_135x50.gif"
	alt="ApacheCon Europe 2005" width="135" height="50"/>
	</link>
	-->

	<a href="http://apachecon.com/">ApacheCon US 2005</a>
	- Please make plans to join us for the conference in
	San Diego, California, USA on 10-14 December 2005.
	See our <a href="events.html">events</a> list for the schedule
	of Forrest meetings at ApacheCon.
	</li>

	<li>Apache Forrest 0.7 was released on 2005-06-23.
	An architecture for Plugins which enables a smaller Forrest
	core and the ability to add new features in a modular way.
	</li>

	</ul>
	</div>

	<a name="N10131"></a><a name="help"></a>
	<div class="skinconf-heading-1">
	<h1>Help Wanted!</h1>
	</div>
	<div class="section">
	<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="contrib.html">"contributing"</a> page for more
	information.
	</p>
	</div>

	</div>