Making pages like these

  1. Create a design in HTML using a text-editor etc., or reuse a existing design.
  2. Convert the design into valid XHTML
  3. Write a XSLTstylesheet  markup.xsl which will transform a document like this: 
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xml" href="markup.xsl" ?>
<!DOCTYPE page SYSTEM "bigent.dtd">
<page name="sample" title="A test page"
      xmlns:idx="http://kronavita/chris/xmlns/2003/idx">
  <content>

    This is my <idx:idx>content</idx:idx>.

  </content>
</page>
    into a valid XHTML file with your design.
  4. Create a page template for future pages.

  5. Write a Makefile like this: 

    XSLT = xsltproc

INDEXPAGES = index samplepage

PAGES = $(INDEXPAGES) keywords

OTHERS = style.css

XSLTFILE = markup.xsl

all: website

generate-entities:
	generate-entities > entities.dtd

website: generate-entities $(PAGES:=.html)

%.html: %.xml $(XSLTFILE) bigent.dtd postprocess
	$(XSLT) $(XSLTFILE) $< | postprocess >$@

keywords.xml: $(INDEXPAGES:=.xml) mkindex.rb
	mkindex.rb $(INDEXPAGES:=.xml) >keywords.xml

clean:
	-rm $(PAGES:=.html)

.PHONY: generate-entities
    which will handle the transformation process.

    Here we use two additional scripts:

    generate-entities
    A short script which creates entity files like this: 
    <!ENTITY timestamp "Thu Sep 04 13:16:43 CEST 2003">
    mkindex.rb
    A more complicated script making a index out of all the <idx:idx> tags in your contents (see keywords).

  6. Abstract complicated HTML constructs. For example, instead of 
    <div class="sidebar-box-shadow">
  <div class="sidebar-box">
    This is a box. There should probably be <em>something cool</em>
    inside this box but there isn't. There's just this message.
  </div>
</div>
    I write 
    <box>
  This is a box. There should probably be <em>something cool</em>
  inside this box but there isn't. There's just this message.
</box>
    This will make it easier if i choose to change the behavior of <box>.
  7. That's all!