Quickstart

  1. Download or clone the Kiln code from the GitHub repository.
  2. Open a terminal window and go to the directory where Kiln is installed (hereafter KILN_HOME).
  3. Run the command build.sh (Mac OS X/Linux) or build.bat (Windows), and leave the Terminal window open.
  4. Open a browser and got to http://localhost:9999/. It should display a welcome page together with some very basic navigation.
  5. Store project XML content in the folders KILN_HOME/webapps/ROOT/content/xml/tei (TEI) and KILN_HOME/webapps/ROOT/content/xml/epidoc (EpiDoc).
  6. View HTML versions of the XML at http://localhost:9999/en/text/<filename>.html (TEI) and http://localhost:9999/en/inscriptions/<filename>.html (EpiDoc) [filetype extensions not included in <filename>]
  7. Customise the templates, transformations and site URL structure. The example project in KILN_HOME/example provides some guidance on how this can be done.

Principles

Overriding XSLT by using xsl:import - a Kiln XSLT is imported by a local XSLT, allowing for templates to be redefined for the project.

URL scheme: _internal for internal-to-Cocoon Kiln URLs, admin for viewable but not public local material, internal for local internal-to-Cocoon URLs.

The directory structure makes explicit the division between those parts of Kiln that are its core, and should not be changed in any project installation, and the project-specific material. Kiln material is always a descendant of a directory called kiln.

This division also carries through to the Cocoon pipelines and the XSLT they use. Some Kiln pipelines are designed to be flexible enough to suit multiple different uses by a project-specific pipeline (see the Schematron pipelines for an example). Where a Kiln pipeline uses XSLT that might reasonably be customised by a project, it calls a proxy XSLT not within a kiln directory, that in turn imports the Kiln version. This allows for customisation without changing Kiln core files.