Presentation Styles

There are several different styles of presentation technology employed in the various Web application frameworks (see WebProgramming).

• PythonInWebPage

• StructureAnnotation

• ["Programmatic"]

An interesting article which introduces other useful terminology is [http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2001/08/21/templating.html "Choosing a Templating System"].

Syntax

In the area of syntax, several different design decisions are made alongside the above classifications, and this is often the principal reason that new template systems get invented:

• ElementBasedSyntax

• CommentBasedSyntax

• AttributeBasedSyntax

Examples

Some presentation systems fall neatly into the categories above. Others are less easy to classify but have a closer association to one category than the others.

PythonInWebPage

• CheeTah

• PSP (from WebWare)

• ["Spyce"]

StructureAnnotation

• ZPT (Zope Page Templates - see ["Zope"])
• DTML (Document Template Markup Language - see ["Zope"])

• ClearSilver

• wt (see JonsPythonModules)

Hybrids

• CHTL and CGTL (from CherryPy) - PythonInWebPage and StructureAnnotation

• PyMeld - StructureAnnotation and ["Programmatic"]

• ["STML"] (from SkunkWeb) - PythonInWebPage, StructureAnnotation, and ["Programmatic"] being all equally apt (or equally inadequate)

Programmatic

• PTL (from ["Quixote"])

Note

Feel free to add more abstract descriptions and more examples to help people decide what they are looking for!