Product Quick Summary: WebLord for GNU/Linux
Description	Describe the contents and structure of text documents (e.g. web sites) using a unique object-oriented text format that employs patterns into which content is ``filled'', and use WebLord to construct your pages for maximum consistency, flexibility, and reusability of your content.
Version	2.3   (29-Oct-2001)
Platforms	GNU/Linux (i386, glibc 2.2) Also available for The Amiga
License	Free binary (free as in beer)
Download	weblord-23.tar.gz (196 kb) Obsolete: weblord-22.tar.gz (195 kb) weblord-123-eval.tar.gz (114 kb)

WebLord is unique in its approach to creating text pages. There being no precedent for its way of operation has time and again presented us with the difficult task of trying to describe exactly what this tool is, what it does, and how it can help you maintain ten, a hundred, or even a thousand pages of text.

Patterns, patterns everywhere!

WebLord works with patterns that consist of constants and of variables. The constant portion is usually (but not always) the HTML or XML (or whatever other descriptive framework you wish to use), whereas the variables represent the materials that. . . well, vary with each use of this pattern.

The table at the top of this page, for example, is represented by a pattern. Into this is filled information about the colour, width, and the product object (name, description, version, etc). You will find more or less the same table on all of our product pages. When we add another product, we need merely setup another pattern that supplies the data for the pattern above, along with some text such as the one you are reading now that provides more detail on the product than the summary does.

The key here is that we've worked out the HTML for the layout once. Thereafter we only need to supply data to ``fill in the blanks''.

This approach guarantees us that all our product descriptions are consistent. And if we want to add another attribute to the table, or change the background colour, or alter any aspect of it, we need to perform this change in only a single place, then ``recompile'' the site to ensure that all pages are updated that are affected by the change.

In exactly the same way that the table above is a pattern, so are the pages themselves patterns. In fact, the layout pattern of the table above is actually more complex than the one that defines this page. The pattern for this page consists of merely four rows and three columns into which are filled things like the navigation main row, the navigation context column, the logo, small text at the bottom, and the ``body of the page'' (which can be substantial, but is not the concern of the page pattern itself).

The Product

WebLord is a tool, meaning that it is not an application. More precisely: WebLord has no GUI and provides you with no ``website development environment''.

WebLord requires you to know HTML (or XML or whatever output format you wish to produce) and requires that you know how to use a text editor, have some planning skills and possess the willingness to experiment. We've billed WebLord as a ``website compiler'' in the past. Technically that comes closest to what it does, but that term seems to imply that the program requires a programmer's skills. We'd like to think that this is not the case.

For WebLord to do its work you create one or more text files that represent the definition of your website, as well as content materials to fill your pages. Whether you place all your content directly into the definition files or store some or all of it in external files and merge these into the defined patterns under WebLord's control is entirely up to you. We use such a mix because it suits us best.

A preliminary copy of the WebLord Manual is available as a PDF file from our site's Publications Section: help yourself if you want to learn more! The archive contains heavily-crosslinked HTML documentation to serve as a reference manual and tutorial.

Example Output

These, the Ringlord Technologies web pages, have been exclusively constructed with WebLord. Let us point out a few of the ``features'' of this site, lest they be lost on you through their sheer elegance:   ;-)

• The navigation framework (major sections at the top, context sensitive section in the left margin) was defined in less than an hour's time (and that included quite a bit of experimentation). On each page we define the major section to which the page belongs, and what materials go into the context bar on the left. The context bar is defined in such a way that the appropriate text will be highlighted or made linkable or have some subsections (individual product listings) available. Only a few seconds of work are needed when a new product is added, or a new major section is created, or some change to the wording is made.
• The product description table above has the ability to insert an image, creating a two-row space to match the image's width, and using our blue background as a frame for the image. If the product defines no such image/icon then no such space is allocated for the image. The way this works is with a conditional in the pattern, that selects one pattern when the image exists, and another when it doesn't. Once setup it all happens automagically.
• A highly consistent look on all related pages. Many aspects of our pages could be altered on a page-by-page basis. If we had chosen, for example, to change colours of links, or text, or reverse the colour scheme, or select a completely different layout for this page (which you are reading) and this page alone, then we would only have had to define a different layout, or add the appropriate properties to the page definition (pattern) to have these changes override the ones of the page pattern used by all the other pages.

Try the following sites for some examples of pages built with WebLord; the pages will open in a new browser window:

Built by Udo Schuermann:
• Waterwisp® -- The Ultimate Dry Fly
• Graboff Design -- Graphic design firm
• The ``World Wide Walrus'' -- Udo's private pages
• Walrus Hates Barney -- Fighting evil wherever it may lurk
  
  Built by others:
• North Sea Gas -- Scottish folk band