The ASML software is now available. Click
here for files!
ASML is a new markup language designed and developed at the Dartmouth Experimental Visualization Laboratory (DEVLAB) by the Multimedia Research Group. The ASML project is led by Charles B. Owen.
ASML is a markup language for HTML. It does not replace HTML; it supplements it, converting it from a page at a time markup to a multipage document level markup which considers the relations between documents and their media components. It's a new level of markup designed to advance World Wide Web page design from a page at a time approach to a site level approach. ASML documents are converted by the Automatic Site Creation Utility (ASCU) to HTML documents, map files, images, etc. Backgrounds, page formats, and other page specifics need only be specified once, not on each page!
ASML replaces most tasks previous relegated to Perl scripts and other custom solutions. It can be configured to generate all pages in a site or a section of a site, so there is no need to create scripts which make changes to many pages. Replacement of a background image is as simple as changing the image once in an ASML source and rebuilding the site.
An example ASML site is The Prehistoric Archeology of the Aegean This site has 29 lessons, all of which are built from the following ASML code:
{-- Create lesson pages for each lesson --}
{foreach variable="lesson" to="{lesson-count}"}
{-- Import the lesson text from an RTF file --}
{import src="../lessons.rtf/lesson{lesson}.rtf" name="lesson{lesson}"}
{define name="title"}{lesson-shorttitle-{lesson}}{/define}
{define name="navimg"}button90l.gif{/define}
{--
-- Lesson page
--}
{page file="lessons/{lesson}.html"}{bronzehead}{bronzebody}
{lessonleft}
{bronzeright}
<h1>Lesson {lesson}: {lesson-title-{lesson}}</h1>
<hr>
{section src="lesson{lesson}" endbefore="BIBLIOGRAPHY" type="toc"}
<hr>
{section src="lesson{lesson}" endbefore="BIBLIOGRAPHY" omithead="1"}
{bronzeend}
{lessonnavmap}
<map name="prevnext">
<area shape=rect coords="1,1 90,25" href="{lesson-{lesson}-prev}">
<area shape=rect coords="1,26 90,50" href="{lesson-{lesson}-next}">
</map>
{htmlend}
{/page}
{/foreach}
Note the interspercing of ASML tags (using curly braces) and HTML tags (using <>). This page incorporates three image maps with both client side and server side support. It generates all MAP files as well as the HTML files. Common elements, like the "lessonleft" which defines the components on the left side of an image are only defined once.
Some features of ASML
ASML: HTML Markup for large sites.
Important links for ASML software and documentation:
The ASML technical report is available! Note that this document is based on ASML 1.03.
The current version of ASML is version 1.04. The software is in source form at is available for public consumption on an as-is basis only. Please feel free to contact us with comments, bug reports, etc. We welcome new additions to the software.
The important files are:
ASML has been found to run correctly on SGI, HP, Digital Unix, and Linux environments. Please let us know if you run in on another environment, with any modification which were required.
There is a large wish-list of ASML enhancements. If you are interested in working on ASML, feel free to contact us about posible projects.
This site powered
by ASML