Requirements and installation
                     =============================

Requirements
============

   To use XIST you need the following software packages:

    1. Python 2.4,
    2. The Python XML package (at least version 0.8.4),
    3. ll-core (1.7.1 or newer),
    4. if you want to use automatic image size calculation: the
       Python Imaging Library,
    5. if you want to parse broken HTML: libxml2 (including its
       Python wrapper),
    6. if you want want to use the function ll.xist.ns.html.astext to
       convert HTML to plain text: elinks,
    7. if you want to install this package as an egg: setuptools.
    8. if you want to run the test suite: py.test,
    9. and a C compiler supported by distutils, if you want to
       install the source distribution.

Installation
============

   setuptools is used for installation so you can install this module
   with the following command:

 easy_install ll-xist

   If you want to install from source, you can download one of the
   distribution archives, unpack it, enter the directory and execute
   the following command:

 python setup.py install

   This will copy *.py files, compile *.c files and install
   everything in the site-packages directory as the ll.xist package.

   For Windows a binary distribution is provided. To install it,
   double click it, and follow the instructions.

   If you have difficulties installing this software, send a problem
   report to Walter Dörwald (walter@livinglogic.de).

Character encoding
==================

   When you pass an 8bit string in the constructor of an XIST
   element, these strings have to be converted to Unicode. XIST
   assumes that these 8bit strings are in the system default
   encoding, which normally is ASCII.

   If your strings contain non-ASCII characters you must pass them as
   unicode strings to the XIST constructors and you must specify the
   encoding you're using in your source code in the first or second
   line of your script (see PEP 263 for a detailed description).

IPython display hooks
=====================

   If you're using XIST in an IPython shell, XIST allows you to
   browse through your trees using any of the browsers provided by
   IPython's ipipe module.

   You can specify which format gets used by changing the value of
   the defaultpresenter variable in the module ll.xist.presenters:

 from ll.xist import presenters
 presenters.defaultpresenter = presenters.TreePresenter

   Setting this value to None turns off the display hook.