MT4J - Framework Extensions

Sorry for the delay to this update - but I wanted to wait for the major changes to complete before giving you an update.

Yesterday, I have moved the main devlopment to the MT4j Google Code repository (Branches/CSSBranch) - this was necessary, as i need to use inheritance to effectively make use of my code - if you like to follow code development, you can do it from there. On this repository I have created a new project, which contains the tests I need to test my changes.

Anyway, here are the changes of the past 2 weeks:

• Major bugfixes to the font parsing sections
• Added relative sizing
• Many more tests
• Support of background images - tiled and single
• Support for Background: Border: and Font: multi-parameter tags
• Major cleanup of the code
• Outsource the component handling to the CSSHelper class
• Outsource all enums and lists of values to the CSSKeywords class
• Consolidated many classes
• Updated class naming
• Integration into Mt4j (Branches/CSSBranch)
  • Integration of the CSSStyleManager into MTApplication
  • Integration of the functionality into MTPolygon and MTLine - nearly all components extend these classes
  • Integration of the CSSID in MTComponent

Right now, the latter points are untested, stay tuned for more.

This week, I have finally managed to integrate the parser and the CSSStyle class into some of the major Components of MT4j, like MTRectangle, MTPolygon and MTTextArea, and have successfully applied all supported CSS syntax.

I have also added full inheritance support (Global inheritance) and local stylesheets, that can be applied to single objects, which trump the global stylesheets.

To enable inheritance, I use the CSS selectors as follows:

Type Selectors: Select a specific class, like MTTextArea, but not classes, that are descendents of that class (like MTTextField ??)
Class Selectors: Selects a class and all descendents
ID Selectors: MTComponents can be assigned a specific ID, which can be used to assign the style to all objects with that ID

As integration progresses, testing gets more and more complicated, as threading makes it hard to execute certain functions from the JUnit test class, so I ended up writing pseudo-tests in real applications, and check the success using custom functions. As Therion has created a custom Font test fro met to overcome such issues, I will try to clean up those tests and redo them properly once I got the hang of it.

This week the development has progressed more rapidly than before - Uni is finally over (to continue with a Master programme in October), so I finally have time to concentrate on the project.

This week, I have concentrated on writing tests for the CSS file parser and all CSS attributes I support. These tests include:
- Color
- Measures
- Fonts:
-- Serif, Sans, Mono, Normal
-- Bold, Italic, Oblique, Light, Normal
-- Font Color
-- Font-Size
-- Custom Fonts
- Selectors
- Borders

As these tests helped me to identify some bugs in the programming I have adjusted the code so all tests ran well (before the modifications below).

Additionally, I have started integrating the resuslt from the parser into the classes of MT4J, currently using specializations for testing. I have created MTCSSReactangle (extending MTRectangle) to test these modifications.

Furthermore, I have moved the Font generation into the CSSStyle class, to allow dynamic generation of fonts.

Finally, the inheritance system based on CSS selectors has been created in a basic form, yet I still have to test this functionality.
Stay tuned for week 6.

Week 4 has been all about testing the parser - it took me some time to set up the testing environment (a little frustrating in concurrent environments, especially logging is painful), but I have finally managed to set up testing with JUnit 4, using a custrom pseudo MTApplication for the generation of IFonts.

The Following Tests have been set up (and the functions have already been bugfixed:)
Width + Height
Measuring Units
Colors: Hex/RGB/Name

Next on the list is the testing of the Font parsing, I expect loads of fun...

This week has been all about fonts - especially fonts that are considered standard/generic in web development. I have integrated the DejaVu font set as standard font set to cover the generic fonts present in CSS, combined with the styles italic/oblique and normal, and weights normal, bold and light.

Changes:
Added font support in the CSS parser:
Integrated the DejaVu Open Source Font
Generic types: Sans-Serif, Serif, Monospace
Styles: Italic/Oblique, Normal
Weight: Bold, Normal, Light
Added support for custom fonts, specified as {font-family: Helvetica.ttf}
Automatic loading of appropriate fonts from the DejaVu-Set

Work in Process - Compiles, but I cannot get it to run just now, as my link to the svn project seems to be broken

As these are the weeks of my final (final final) exams at my University, progress is kinda slow as I have to devote most of my time to studying statistics and managerial accounting. Yet I have decided to at least achieve some measurable result every week until the exams are over (June 18th), before I can start coding at full speed again.

So, here's my achievements for this week:

Added parsing and conversion for measuring units:
px
pc
em
in
cm
mm
I have used the value of 100dpi for the conversion of units, while I use a 16pt fonts as base for comparison for the em conversion

Added parsing for Colors:
rgb(12,34,56) format
#123456 format
16 web colours (black, white, purple, green, red...)

Added parsing for boolean values:
e.g. visibility

Added parsing for BorderStyles:
none, hidden, solid, dashed, dotted

That's it for this week, stay tuned for more.

Sunday...I finally managed to submit some code to the subversion repository, though I have to admit that most of the time of this week had to be spent on mourning on my Win7 Dev machine which decided to give me headaches right at the start of GSoC.

Anyway, I finally managed to get the project to Eclipse on my primary machine, a Mac Pro (Eclipse is a bit more buggy on a Mac...), the problem being, that Eclipse on a Mac doesn't seem to import class folders properly, which took me some time to correct.

But here's the accomplishments of the week.

• Migrated the project to my Mac as my Win7 Dev Machine isn't cooperating
• Added basic data structures:

• CSSStyle + BorderStyle
• Selector + SelectorType

• Created some sample extensions to generic MT4j Classes (MTCSSRectangle etc.)
• Created a class (parserConnector) for accessing the Apache Batik CSS Parser
• Integrated the Apache Batik project and the SAC 1.3 interfaces as interface to the CSS files
• Started Implementation of CSS DocumentHandler, which processes the CSS files

• Current Status: Parsing of Selectors, including descendants, implemented