Pod-HtmlTree - README

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Pod::HtmlTree 0.97
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NAME

Pod::HtmlTree - Create a hierarchy of HTML documents from your module's PMs.

SYNOPSIS

      use Pod::HtmlTree qw(pod2htmltree);
      pod2htmltree($httproot);

DESCRIPTION

So you've just created a great new Perl module distribution including several *.pm files? You've added nice POD documentation to each of them and now you'd like to view it nicely formatted in a web browser? And you'd also like to navigate between all those manual pages in your distribution and even view their source code? Read on, "Pod::HtmlTree" is what you need.

It traverses your module's distribution directory (which you've probably created using "h2xs"), finds all *.pm files recursivly and calls "pod2html()" on them, hereby resolving all POD links (L<...> style).

Patching SEE ALSO and WHERE'S THE SOURCE? It then saves the nicely formatted HTML files under "docs/html" and updates each's "SEE ALSO" section to contain links to every other *.pm file in you're module's distribution. So, if you want that, please make sure your documentation contains a "SEE ALSO" section.

Also, at the end of the "SEE ALSO" section, it'll add a link to the source code of the current *.pm file, just in case a user wants to browse it because there's issues which aren't clear from the documentation.

It also adds a stylesheet to "docs/html", which is referenced by every HTML file.

So, in order to obtain HTML documentation for all your distribution's files, just call the script (which comes with the distribution of this module)

pod2htmltree httproot

while you're located in the top directory of your module's distribution. What's in "httproot" is explained below.

The script "pod2htmltree" just calls

        use Pod::HtmlTree;
        Pod::HtmlTree::pod2htmltree($ARGV[0]);

internally, if you want to call it from within Perl, that's the way to go.

FUNCTIONS

pod2htmltree( $httproot );

        Make sure you've "chdir()"ed to your module's top directory when
        calling this function.

        Recursively finds all "*.pm" files under the current directory,
        transforms them to HTML and places the result files in a tree
        starting at "docs/html" from the current directory.

        $httproot is the URL (absolute like "http://..." or relative like
        "/mymodule") to the top directory of your module, as seen from your
        web browser.

        If you don't like the HTML documents to be created under
        "docs/html", you can specify the relative (!) directory in the
        additional parameter $htmldocdir:

            pod2htmltree( $httproot, $htmldocdir );

        If not specified, $htmldocdir defaults to "docs/html", therefore the
        one-parameter syntax shown above.

banner( $text );

        Prints the passed text string nicely formatted as a screen warning.
        E. g., to notify the user after running "pod2htmltree" to ""Make
        sure http://localhost/perldoc/Pod-HtmlTree points to
        /u/mschilli/DEV/Pod-HtmlTree"", just pass it to "banner()" and print
        the return value:

            **************************************************
            * Make sure                                      *
            * http://localhost/perldoc/Pod-HtmlTree points   *
            * to /u/mschilli/DEV/Pod-HtmlTree                
            *************************************************

EXAMPLE

So, if your module is under

/u/mschilli/MYPROJECTS/Spiffy-Module

and has the files

        Spiffy-Module
        Spiffy-Module/Changes
        Spiffy-Module/MANIFEST
        Spiffy-Module/Makefile.PL
        Spiffy-Module/README
        Spiffy-Module/lib
        Spiffy-Module/lib/Spiffy.pm
        Spiffy-Module/lib/Spiffy/Subspiffy.pm
        Spiffy-Module/lib/Spiffy/Subspiffy/Subsub.pm
        Spiffy-Module/t
        Spiffy-Module/t/1.t

a call to

        cd Spiffy-Module
        pod2htmltree http://localhost/Spiffy

from within the shell or

        use Pod::HtmlTree;
        Pod::HtmlTree::pod2htmltree("http://localhost/Spiffy");

from within Perl will "pod2html"-transform the files "Spiffy.pm", "Subspiffy.pm" and "Subsub.pm" to HTML and put the result there:

        Spiffy-Module/docs/html/Spiffy.html
        Spiffy-Module/docs/html/Spiffy/Subspiffy.html
        Spiffy-Module/docs/html/Spiffy/Subspiffy/Subspiffy.html

Directories are created on the fly as necessary. To view them on your web server via a browser, you need to create a symbolic link from your web server's document root.

If the module's distribution is located under

/u/mschilli/MYPROJECTS/Spiffy-Module

and your web server's doc root is "/opt/netscape/htdocs", you need to create a symlink like

ln -s /u/mschilli/MYPROJECTS/Spiffy-Module /opt/netscape/htdocs/Spiffy

Then, if you point your browser to

http://localhost/Spiffy/docs/html/Spiffy.html

you'll see the documentation. If you've specified a (probably empty) "SEE ALSO" section, it will be automatically populated with other modules in your distribution and a link to the current module's source code.

Or, call it in Makefile.PL
If you want to give the user of your distribution the opportunity to create their own browsable HTML-documentation of your module, just include the following in the Makefil.PL of your distribution:

use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;

        >>  # Generate documentation?
        >>  if (prompt("Generate HTML documentation?", "n") =~ /^y/) {
        >>      require Pod::HtmlTree;
        >>      Pod::HtmlTree::pod2htmltree("/mymodule");
        >>      print Pod::HtmlTree::banner(
        >>          "Make sure http://localhost/mymodule points to ", `pwd`);
        >>   }

        WriteMakefile(
            ...
        );

SEE ALSO
AUTHOR

Mike Schilli, <mschilli1@aol.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.