Installing XWeb

This is basically the same text as the readme file found in the distribution. If you already have downloaded XWeb or plan to do it anyway we recommend using the (usually more up to date) version in the distribution. This version should still be valid, though -- read it if you just want to get an idea how installing XWeb might be like. ;-)

For running XWeb you need a Java 2 enabled platform, i.e. you have to have a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) with a version number >= 1.2.0 installed. Note that the current version still needs a command line to run. Download the latest version of XWeb from the Souceforge download pages.

When extracting the archive you get a folder like xweb-0.3 which contains all parts needed to run XWeb. The following paragraphs assume that you have changed into this directory.

There are some Windows batch and Unix shell script files to start the programs in ./bin, they are:

wp[.bat]: calls the website processor (the main command line tool) and takes the website file as input
ird[.bat]: calls the dialog for rendering images
ir[.bat]: calls the image renderer itself (try -? for help)
xweb[.bat]: calls the (not yet functional) main frontend. You can open and look at an .xweb file in it, but none of your changes will be persistent. Try it on the tutorial file -- it might help you understanding the structure of the file

All these files assume that the environment variable XWEBHOME is set to the directory where you installed XWeb (the one containing ./bin, ./lib, ./net and ./tutorial). Set this variable using

  set XWEBHOME = X:\path\to\xweb

on Windows,

  export XWEBHOME = /path/to/xweb

in bash or

  set XWEBHOME /path/to/xweb

in (t)csh.

You might want to add the ./bin directory to your PATH environment variable to run XWeb programs from wherever you like.

If you want to use the Windows Explorer to process XWeb files you have to add the environment variable to your autoexec.bat (for those Windows systems that are still DOS: 95,98,ME) or to your environment in the properties of the "My Computer" object (NT/2000). Then you can add a new file type by using View->Options...->{File Types}->[New Type...]. Fill a name into the first field (e.g. "XWeb website file"), the extenstion should be "xweb", skip the MIME type (or use "text/xml") and press [New...] for the actions. You want to connect "open" with the wp.bat file in the ./bin directory. Press [OK] until you are back into the normal Explorer window.

That's all -- you can create websites now by calling something like this:

  wp myWebsite.xweb

Since XWeb is very verbose in the current version you might want to store the output in a file:

  wp myWebsite.xweb > xweb.log

This will create a new file xweb.log or overwrite an existing one with all the log output of XWeb. Errors will still be displayed on the command line.

If you want to create a version of your website that uses a file: URL for local viewing, you can call the website processor like this:

  wp --preview website.xweb

This will use a URL to the output directory instead of the [baseURL] attribute.

This project is hosted on

-- visit the project page