The background to this page is a smartphone picture of my globe. I built this website using a combination of css libraries and a Python program I wrote that creates html from an 'indented tag file' -- a sort of template inspired by Python itself.

My program allows 'tags' (in square brackets) to be defined which are then translated into snippets of html. The best way to see how it works, if you have Python on your computer, is to click the zipfile link below:

itfdemo.zip

Unzip everything into a directory, 'cd' to that directory, start the Python interpreter, and from itftranslate import *
You can then try itftran('test.itf') which will create 'test.html' from the 'test.itf' in the zipfile.

'test.html' is the html for this page, generated by the 'test.itf' tag file. If you take a look at the two files, you can see that the tag file allows specifying the structure of a web page using indentation. [TAGS], unlike most regular html tags, don't require a matching closing tag.

What are the advantages of using a templating setup like this?

• I'm not dependent on a specific vendor's servers and/or tools
• Some authoring tools create messy html. My 'tag' files stay clean, uncluttered and easy to edit with a 'plain' editor such as Notepad. I can use regular html tags as needed, but mainly I'm looking at content.
• I can make all this happen from the Python interpreter + editor, without using a mouse.
• It's free.

Other templating systems for html exist, including simple ones for static pages as well as ones that are part of more complex frameworks. Using my own I can customize as desired to generate more than html. One alternative to explore is TAL