WebLord

Operating WebLord

In the absence of a graphic user interface¹, WebLord is controlled either through Workbench tooltypes or through direct arguments given on the command line.

Workbench Tooltypes

When run from the Workbench, WebLord will send messages will be written to a 640×160 pixel console window. This window will open only if needed.

WebLord will, at this time, read only the tooltypes of Workbench arguments, but ignore the names of the files supplying the arguments. This behavior will be improved in future releases.

FLAGS

Flags are specified as in the following example:
FLAGS=QUIET|NOEXEC|LOCASE
The following flags are defined:

QUIET (equivalent of debug level 0)

Suppresses all but error messages. If all goes well, WebLord's Workbench window will not open.

VERBOSE (equivalent of debug level 1)

The default level at which WebLord operates. It is not usually necessary to specify this level and provided here only for completeness.

DEBUG (equivalent of debug level 2)

Increases WebLord's amount of output to include general purpose diagnostics.

NOEXEC

Causes the actual execution of the 'post-exec' (and 'post-exec-batch') to be suppressed. If you are merely testing the results of your work, you may wish to examine them locally before causing the pages to be uploaded to your internet service provider (provided that this is what you are using 'post-exec' for).

LOCASE

This flag is useful only on operating systems that distinguish between upper- and lower-case characters in file names. Unix operating systems fall into this category, but the Amiga does not. This flag causes any reference in the site description file ('#include' files) to be changed to all-lowercase letters. If the external files are also named in all-lowercase then this ensures that no matter what you type in the site description file will be "portable" to other platforms.

DEBUG

This keyword specifies a number from 0 through 9 (inclusive) that sets WebLord's debugging level. A value of 0 suppresses all output but errors; a value of 1 is normal operation; a value of 2 increases output, etc.

FILE or SITE

Specifies the name of the site description file. This is the only argument that WebLord requires.

PAGE or PAGES

Specifies the names of one or more pages from the site description file that should be generated. If you omit this argument, then WebLord will generate all pages specified by the first SITE object's 'pages' property. The PAGE / PAGES argument allows you to specify either a subset of the pages or generate pages that may not ordinarily be part of the site proper (but are also defined in the file.)

CLI Arguments

Command Line Interface (CLI) arguments may be given with or without their keyword prefixes. On the Amiga, this is accomplished with the standard AmigaOS function ReadArgs(), whereas on other operating systems, the parsing is performed with a less sophisticated method. On Unix systems in particular, each keyword can be abbreviated to a minus sign followed by the first letter of the keyword (-d for DEBUG, -l for LOCASE, etc.) Upper/lower case is of no importance.

QUIET (equivalent of debug level 0)

Suppresses all but error messages. If all goes well, WebLord's Workbench window will not open.

NOEXEC

Causes the actual execution of the 'post-exec' (and 'post-exec-batch') to be suppressed. If you are merely testing the results of your work, you may wish to examine them locally before causing the pages to be uploaded to your internet service provider (provided that this is what you are using 'post-exec' for).

LOCASE

This flag is useful only on operating systems that distinguish between upper- and lower-case characters in file names. Unix operating systems fall into this category, but the Amiga does not. This flag causes any reference in the site description file ('#include' files) to be changed to all-lowercase letters. If the external files are also named in all-lowercase then this ensures that no matter what you type in the site description file will be "portable" to other platforms.

DEBUG

This keyword specifies a number from 0 through 9 (inclusive) that sets WebLord's debugging level. A value of 0 suppresses all output but errors; a value of 1 is normal operation; a value of 2 increases output, etc.

SITE

Specifies the name of the site description file. This is the only argument that WebLord requires.

PAGE

Specifies the names of one or more pages from the site description file that should be generated. If you omit this argument, then WebLord will generate all pages specified by the first SITE object's 'pages' property. The PAGE / PAGES argument allows you to specify either a subset of the pages or generate pages that may not ordinarily be part of the site proper (but are also defined in the file.)

HELP

Produces a listing of the acceptable arguments and short explanations for each.