elinks/doc/perl.pod

=head1 NAME

elinks-perl - ELinks Perl Interface

=head1 INTRODUCTION

This document aims to describe the ELinks (powerful text WWW browser) interface
for Perl (powerful and enchanting programming language). This interface falls
to the "internal scripting" domain of ELinks, therefore it concerns scripts
which affect ELinks general behaviour, I<not> scripts embedded in the WWW
documents.

The interface consists of two largely separate and independent parts. The first
one is where ELinks is the active party, calling Perl I<hooks> upon certain
events (going to a URL, about to render an HTML document, exiting) and
conniving the hook results. This part of the interface is not subject of this
document, however. There is no document dedicated to this so far, however the
example Perl hooks file (I<contrib/perl/hooks.pl> in the source distribution)
has some plentiful POD documentation embedded, which lists the currently
implemented hooks exhaustively, along with I<Developer's usage> sections which
describe the Perl side of the hooks interface. If you are also at least mildly
capable C programmer, you might consider contributing Perl interface for some
other hooks which are supported by the rest of ELinks; see I<doc/events.txt>
for detailed listing of these.

The other part of the interface, which is also the main subject of this
document, are functions and data structures provided by ELinks for the Perl
scripts. Here, the Perl script is the active party, accessing ELinks data
structures and functions.

While the event hooks are already pretty standardized and settled down, each
internal scripting language has a very different Perl->ELinks interface; well,
each of the two who actually provide any interface of this kind.  The other
language having this is Lua, but the author of this document chose to
completely ignore its interface since he believes it needs a radical redesign
anyway.  It is currently result of some historical features gluing, is pretty
clumsy, ugly and ad hoc built together. So the author took this opporunity
to think out something he believes is nice, consistent, and elegant. ;-)



=head1 ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT

Please note that this is currently mostly only a design document. Nothing or
only very little of it is already actually implemented. The unimplemented parts
are marked by the B<TODO> marker. The whole thing is also still subject of
discussion and can be changed anytime without any notice or compatibility
measures.



=head1 GENERAL USAGE

The data structures are generally exported to the global namespace (B<TODO>:
a way to prevent this) for greater convenience, while the functions provided
are kept in the C<ELinks> (or subsequent) namespace. Please note well that
B<you do not need to load the ELinks package explicitly>! No

	use ELinks;

is needed. Don't do it.

ELinks exports some of its internals as Perl data structures.  Especially the
vectors are usually generated dynamically and behave as tied vectors; therefore
changes to them propagate as changes to their internal counterparts; e.g.
adding an item to the array of bookmarks will reflect immediately in the ELinks
internal bookmarks list.



=head1 CONFIGURATION SUBSYSTEM

=over 4

=item %options

This hash is keyed by option names and contains the respective value - either
a stringnumber or a reference to a subsequent hash. Values are automatically
converted to the option type - e.g. if you set a boolean option to 12938
or 'pasky' and read it back, you get just 1; if the value is bounded integer,
you get the value modulo max.

The first level of the hash is keyed by the option trees; two trees are
present now, I<config> and I<cmdline>.

You may not add options (set previously unset keys) through this hash
except for the I<autocreate> keys (those with a I<_template_> option,
e.g. B<mime.extension>). Options with the I<deleted> flag appear as
unset in this hash. Deleting options from this hash merely sets the
I<deleted> flag on them.

B<Example:>

	$options{'config'}->{'document'}->{'download'}->{'notify_bell'}++;

B<TODO>


=item %extoptions

This hash is keyed the same way as I<%options>, however it contains all the
information about the option.

You may add options (set previously unset keys) through this hash only by
setting the I<type> member first. You can delete options from this hash,
which wipes them altogether, but B<never do that>!

=over 4

=item type

String containing I<bool> (B<not> considered an integer type), I<int> (basic
integer type), I<long> (big integer), I<string>, I<codepage>, I<language>,
I<color>, I<command> (the I<value> is undefined in this case), I<alias>, or
I<tree> (the I<value> member is a hash reference).

=item value

=item flags

Reference of array of strings, which can be: I<hidden> (never touch those
options), I<autocreate> (the tree is magical), I<watermark> (this is for
internal options marking; you must know what are you doing if you are ever
going to use it, and you B<must> clear it after you are done; B<never touch
this flag>), I<touched> (whether this option should be saved/updated in the
configuration file), I<sort> (the tree shall be kept sorted by ELinks; no
impact on subtrees), or I<deleted> (the option is already gone; this option is
merely a shadow neccesary for appropriate edit of the configuration file).

Note that ELinks internally uses some other flags too, those are of no value
whatsoever for the Perl scripts though, so you cannot see them.

=item min

Meaningful only for integer types.

=item max

Meaningful only for integer types.

=item description

=item caption

=item changehook

B<TODO>: A way to bind Perl coderef as a changehook.

=back

B<Example:>

	my $btree = $extoptions{'config'}->{'bookmarks'}->{'value'};
	$btree->{'cute'} = { type => 'bool', value => 1 };

	$btree->{'lovely'}->{'type'} = 'tree';
	$btree->{'lovely'}->{'value'}->{'shiny'}->{'type'} = 'int';

	$btree->{'cool'}->{'type'} = 'string';

	# Equivalent:
	$btree->{'cool'}->{'flags'} = [ 'deleted' ];
	delete $options{'config'}->{'bookmarks'}->{'cool'};

B<TODO>


=item %keybindings

This hash is keyed by the keymap name (I<main>, I<menu>, and I<edit>) on the
first level and by the key string on the second level (with the same rules
as in the configuration file). The value is an action name string I<or>
it can be also a Perl code reference, if you want to bind your own
subroutine.

Currently the custom Perl subroutine will get only the key string as its
first parameter. More parameters (different for each keymap) will be added
in future as the required infrastructure for them will be added.

B<Example:>

	my $q = $keybindings{'main'}->{'q'};
	ELinks::alert(ref $q ? 'perl hook' : $q);
	$keybindings{'main'}->{'q'} = \&quit_wrapper;

B<TODO>


=item %actbindings

This hash is keyed by the keymap name (I<main>, I<menu>, and I<edit>) on the
first level and by the action string on the second level (see the configuration
documentation for the list of actions), I<or> the key can also be a Perl code
reference (that may sound sick but it is actually cool! ;-). The value is a
reference to an array of key strings. Therefore, it simply provides reverse
mapping to the I<%keybindings> map; you could emulate that by some Perl code
but in this case these two mappings are both so frequently needed that it is
practical to have both builtin.

The values are unique, so adding the value at one place will make it disappear
from another possible occurence.

B<Example:>

	ELinks::alert(join(' ', @{$keybindings{'main'}->{'quit'}});
	push(@{$keybindings{'main'}->{\&quit_wrapper}}, 'q');

B<TODO>


=item ELinks::conf_eval($string)

This function takes the supplied I<$string> and evaluates it as a [set of]
configuration command[s] (like the B<-eval> commandline option). It
returns an array of errors encountered during the evaluation; empty
array signifies successful evaluation.

B<Example:>

	ELinks::conf_eval('set connection.async_dns = 0');
	ELinks::conf_eval('bind "main" "q" = "quit"');

B<TODO>


=back



=head1 SIMPLE DIALOGS

This chapter is concerned of using simple prefabricated dialogs.  Explicitly
construing complex custom dialogs from widgets is described in the CUSTOM
DIALOGS section.

=over 4

=item ELinks::alert(...)

This function shows a trivial window containing only the supplied text and an
C<[ OK ]> button.

The function takes either a single parameter with the text, or a hash with the
I<message> and optional I<title> key. The window title defaults to "Perl
Alert").

The function returns nothing (or rather, anything).

B<Example:>

	ELinks::alert('They are after you!');
	ELinks::alert(title => 'The Litany Against Fear',
	              message => 'I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer...');

B<TODO>

=item ELinks::confirm(...)

This function shows a simple window containing only the supplied text and two
C<[ Yes ]> and C<[ No ]> buttons.

The function takes either a single parameter with the text, or a hash with the
I<message> and optional I<title> (window title) key, which defaults to "Perl
Confirmation". You can also pass optional I<yes> and I<no> keys, changing the
default button labels.

The function returns true if the yes button was pressed, false otherwise.

B<Example:>

	ELinks::emit_action('quit') if Elinks::confirm('Quit ELinks?');

	# Abuse example: ;-)
	if (ELinks::confirm(title => 'Candy shop',
	                    message => 'What will you choose?'
	                    yes => 'Sweet', no => 'Lollipop')
		{ ELinks::alert('Yummy!'); }
	else
		{ ELinks::alert('*Smack*'); }

B<TODO>

=item ELinks::inputbox(...)

This functionn shows a simple window containing the supplied label, an input
box, and the C<[ OK ]> and C<[ Cancel ]> buttons. So it will look like e.g.
the Goto URL dialog.

The function takes either a single parameter with the label, or a hash with the
I<label> and and optional I<title> (window title) key, which defaults to "Perl
Input".

The function returns the input value if the OK button was pressed, undef
otherwise.

B<Example:>

	ELinks::alert('I have ' . ELinks::inputbox('Amount') . ' of '
	              . ELinks::inputbox(title => 'Curious',
	                                 label => 'Fruit sort'));

B<TODO>

=back



=head1 AUTHORS

This document was scribbled by Petr Baudis.