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Updated APIlity Reference released

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By Thomas Steiner. Written on . Work

Google AdWords logoDear APIlity users,


It took a long time but hopefully the new reference has been worth waiting for. As of today, you can use the new reference from the known location:


• www.google-apility.sourceforge.net/reference.html

There is also a standalone version available which is recommanded to download:

• www.google-apility.sourceforge.net/APIlity_Reference_Standalone.html

The new reference includes:
  • Syntax-highlighted (samples) for straightforward coding
  • A Quicknavigatior system with googley colors for easy orientation in the reference sections
  • The possibility to directly link to every function for easy support from Google-side and direct references for questions about a particular function
  • With the new Quicknavigator, the APIlity forum and APIlity home are just a click away
  • The new reference is pure CSS layouted XHTML which provides maximum compatibility with hopefully every current browser (unlike the old XML-based version)
  • It is single-paged and therefore can be easily searched (I love Firefox's "search-as-you-type" function for this purpose)


How it works

In the background there is still the ugly XML file which holds all data. This file in future will be autogenerated by the code. By now it is maintained manually, which already is a lot easier than maintaining the whole XHTML web site.
To create the XHTML file, the XML is parsed in a XPATH-like way but as XPATH currently does not yet support all features needed (like live PHP processing and ugly nested tags), I developed an XML parser which completely imitates the behaviour I have or which I would like to have in XPATH.
  1. The functions get separated by WSDL services
  2. Then they are sorted alphabetically and split up in object and class functions
  3. Afterwards the WSDL service information and the native API service information are added
  4. Finally for each function family the particular section with its own color bar and link color class are created
  5. Static information like the introduction and the organigram and hierarchy image are added
Technologies used: PHP5 (SimpleXML), CSS, JavaScript.

Hope you like the new reference. Feel free to leave a comment about the updated reference. Thanks.