[Gambas-user] WebPage support in Gambas

Sun Mar 18 15:45:18 CET 2012

On Sun, 2012-03-18 at 14:29 +0100, Benoît Minisini wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In revision #4561, Gambas compiler now can compile WebPage.
> 
> ---- What is a WebPage ?
> 
> WebPage is a new "form" type that you enable in the IDE by using the
> 'gb.web' component.
> 
> It generates an HTML page from an HTML template having an ASP-like syntax.
> 
> A WebPage has two parts: a "class" part (like forms) stored in a *.class
> file, and an HTML template part stored in a *.webpage file. The HTML
> part is edited with a standard text editor.
> 
> At the moment, the following syntaxes are implemented:
> 
> <% Code %>
> 
> 	This introduces Gambas code inside the HTML page. Use the
> 	PRINT instruction to generate some HTML directly.
> 
> <%= Expression %>
> 
> 	This evaluates Expression and convert it to HTML with the
> 	Html$() function.
> 
> For example:
> 
> <html>
> <body>
> <%Dim sEnv As String%>
> <h2>Environment</h2>
> <table>
> <%For Each sEnv In Application.Env%>
> <tr>
>    <td><%=sEnv%></td>
>    <td><%=Application.Env[sEnv]%></rd>
> </tr>
> <%Next%>
> </table>
> <%
> Print "<p>"; Html("Cool isn't it?"); "</p>"
> %>
> </body>
> </html>
> 
> ---- How does it work internally?
> 
> The *.webpage file is transformed by the compiler into a Render() method 
> added to the *.class file. This Render() methods prints the generated 
> HTML to the standard output.
> 
> ---- So now?
> 
> Let's talk about what kind of useful syntax could be implemented!
> 
> I think that every template syntax should be enclosed by '<%' and '%>'.
> 
> I think that some sort of include is needed. For example, something like 
> <%{OtherWebPage}%> will be transformed into "OtherWebPage.Render()", so 
> that the OtherWebPage is included into the current one.
> 
> Nothing is engraved in the marble (french expression), so please tell 
> what you think about that, and if you have ideas!
> 
> Regards,
> 

Looks sort of like PHP to me. ScriptBasic uses a preprocessor to
generate HTML pages from templates and 'form' variable tags. 

I hate PHP but almost all widely used applications out there are based
on it. (security nightmare) 

Personally I would like to see Gambas be able to create a desktop
application I can install easily and without the development tools
before you wonder off to the web side of Gambas.