From 44d1a5a9f71b03d9aceeccd760a63fcdc45f8bad Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hallgren Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:03:54 +0000 Subject: Improvements of "gf -server" mode and related setup "gf -server" mode now contains everything needed to run the minibar and the grammar editor (including example-based grammar writing). The Setup.hs script installs the required files where gf -server can find them. These files have been moved to a new directory: src/www. The separate server program pgf-http is now obsolete. --- src/www/minibar/about.html | 180 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 180 insertions(+) create mode 100644 src/www/minibar/about.html (limited to 'src/www/minibar/about.html') diff --git a/src/www/minibar/about.html b/src/www/minibar/about.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..69fba5a9d --- /dev/null +++ b/src/www/minibar/about.html @@ -0,0 +1,180 @@ + + +About Minibar + + + + + +

About Minibar

+ +Minibar is an alternative implementation of the +GF web app +Fridge Poetry. +It doesn't do everything the original Fridge Poetry does (e.g. drag-and-drop is missing), +so I refer to it as a minibar rather than a full refrigerator :-) + +

+Some implementation details: + +

It is implemented directly in JavaScipt. It does not use Google Web Toolkit or any big JavaScript libraries. +
It has been tested and found to work in the following browsers: +
- On the Mac: Firefox 3.5 & 3.6, Safari 4.0, Opera 10.10 and + Google Chrome 4.0.249.49. +
- On Linux: Firefox 3.0.18 & 3.5, Opera 10.10. +
- On the Android Dev Phone: Android Mobile Safari 3.0.4 & 3.1.2 + and Android Opera Mini 4.2. +
+ It does not seem work in Internet Explorer 7 + (there are both styling and scripting issues). + There seems to be some rendering bugs in Chrome 5.0.342.9 β. +
The implementation consist of two JavaScript files: + minibar.js and support.js + The latter is also used in + a couple of + small web apps based on the + SALDO web services. +
To access the GF web service, it uses the + JSONP method + mentioned in the GF + web services paper, which allows the web app to be hosted on a different server + from the GF web service. (To demonstrate this, I put the Minibar demo on + www.cs.chalmers.se, while the GF server that it calls is on + www.grammaticalframework.org.) +
As an experiment, it does no use the grammars.xml file, + but instead calls a little CGI script, + grammars.cgi + which lists the .pgf files in the directory, in JSONP format. + (Note: if you want to install this on your own computer, +
- if you click on the link, + the CGI script will be downloaded as grammars.cgi.txt, + but it should be called grammars.cgi and stored on the server + in the same directory as the grammar files. +
- for CGI scripts to work with lighttpd, "mod_cgi" needs + to be included in the definition of server.modules in the + lighttpd.conf file.) +
+
[Added 2010-02-16] There is a button for generating random sentences. +
[Added 2010-02-23] All translations are shown, not just the first one, + if there are multiple parses. +
[Added 2010-02-25] Next to each translation, there is now a little tree + icon that you can click on to see a drawing of an abstract syntax tree or a + parse tree. If you click on a drawing it collapses back into a tree icon. +
[Added 2010-04-09] Preparations to support different ways to access the + grammar: currently we access a PGF server via JSONP, but I would also like + to support AJAX, and local/downloaded JavaScript grammars. +
[Added 2010-04-19] A text entry field appears when you click in + the sentence area (with a dashed border). This allows you to enter words by + typing on the keyboard. As you start typing word magnets that don't match what + you are typing are removed. When only one magnet remains, you can press enter + to complete the word. +
[Added 2010-04-19] There is a menu for choosing the output language: + you can pick "All" to translate to all available languages, or pick one + particular language. +
[Added 2010-04-19] You can pass options to the function + start_minibar to customize the user interface. The default is + {show_abstract:true,show_trees:true} to show the abstract syntax + of parsed sentences, and to show icons that expand to syntax/parse trees next + each translation. + These features can be turned off by setting the fields to false. +
[Added 2010-04-30] The grammar menu is omitted if there is only one + grammar in the grammar list. +
[Added 2010-04-30] Fewer hardwired constants and new + start_minibar options (server, grammars_url, grammar_list, + show_grouped_translations, delete_button_text) to make + minibar.js more resuable.) +
[Added 2010-05-26] The magnets are now created with + <input type=button> tags to make them clickable in more + browsers. +
[Added 2010-05-26] The text entry field is now visible from the start, + and it is removed when no more words can be added to the sentence. When you + press enter, a word is added if there is only one magnet left, + or if what you have entered exactly matches one of the remaining + magnet. +
[Added 2010-05-28] Added a link to make it easy to try the same sentence in + Google Translate.This can be + turned off by passing the option {try_google:false} to + start_minibar. +
[Added 2010-06-02] Added support for Help and Feedback buttons, controlled + by the options feedback_url and help_url passed to + start_minibar. +
[Added 2010-06-02] New option: default_source_language. +
[Added 2010-09-10] Minibar now automatically uses + XHR + instead of JSONP when possible (i.e. when the HTML document and the + PGF service are on the same server). +
[Added 2010-09-10] The default input language is now the user's preferred + language, if possible. This is implemented by consulting the + userLanguage field in the grammar info output by pgf-server. +
[Added 2010-10-27] Keyboard input and completion should now work much + more smoothly: +
- When you press space, the current word will be completed (if incomplete) + and a new magnet will be created. If there is more than one possible + completion, no magnet is created, but the common prefix of the possible + completions is added to the text box. +
- Instead of asking the server for possible completions every time a new + letter is added to the curent word, minibar only ask for completions for + whole words and then filters the list locally when more letters are entered, + speeding things up when server responses are slow. +
+
[Added 2010-10-27] Code restructuring: +
- The PGF server API has been moved to its own file: + pgf_online.js. This + allows it to be reused in other applicaitons without importing the entire + minibar. It also allows minibar to be used with different server + interfaces. minibar.html has been updated to + show how you use the new minibar.js and + pgf_online.js. +
- The minibar code has been rewritten to avoid storing state information + in the document tree and accessing it by referring to named document + elements. The code now also avoids using string literals containing + the names of top-level functions to specify event handlers for buttons + and menus. (The code is no longer introspective, so α conversion + will not change its meaning.) +
+
[Added 2010-11-09] Some new documentation: +
- gf-web-api-examples.html: + examples illustrating the PGF server API provided by + pgf_online.js. +
- example.html: a minimal example of a web + page that uses pgf_online.js to talk to the + PGF server. +
+
[Added 2011-03-03] Added a button to display word alignment. +
[Changed 2011-03-22] Don't force focus to the typed input field + after every word. On touch-based devices, the on-screen keyboard kept + popping up after every word, which was very annoying if you were + entering a sentence by tapping on the magnets. +
[Changed 2011-08-03] Moved the initialization code in minibar.html to + minibar_online.js. +
[Changed 2011-08-08] For improved modularity and reusability, + two smaller objects have been factored out from the Minibar object: + Input and Translations. These have been placed in two separate files: + minibar_input.js and + minibar_translations.js. + Some common auxiliary functions have also been moved to a separate file: + minibar_support.js. +
[Added 2011-08-09] Added some Minibar API + documentation. +
[Changed 2011-08-22] Quick fix to allow literals to be entered: + if you press Enter, the current word will be accepted, even if there are no + matching completions. + (You can now use names of people when constructing sentences in the Letter + grammar, for example.) +

+ +

+ + Last modified: Mon Aug 22 19:31:37 CEST 2011 + +

+TH +

+ + -- cgit v1.2.3