NAME
    Text::MicroMason::ReadMe - About the MicroMason Distribution

MOTIVATION
    The HTML::Mason module provides a useful syntax for dynamic template
    interpretation (sometimes called embedded scripting): plain text (or
    HTML) containing occasional chunks of Perl code whose results are
    interpolated into the text when the template is "executed."

    However, HTML::Mason also provides a full-featured web application
    framework with numerous other functions, and there are times in which
    I'd like to use the templating capability without configuring a full
    Mason installation.

    Thus, the Text::MicroMason module was born: it supports the core aspects
    of the HTML::Mason syntax ("<%...%>" expressions, "%...\n" lines and
    "<%perl>...</%perl>" blocks, "<& file &>" includes, "%ARGS" and
    "$_out->()"), and omits the features that are web specific (like
    autohandlers) or are less widely used (like "<%method>" blocks).

  Related Modules

    You may well be thinking "yet another dynamic templating module?
    Sheesh!" And you'd have a good point. There certainly are a variety of
    templating toolkits on CPAN already; even restricting ourselves to those
    which use Perl syntax for both interpolated expressions and flow control
    (as opposed to "little languages") there's a fairly crowded field,
    including Template::Toolkit, Template::Perl, Text::Template, and
    Text::ScriptTemplate, as well as those that are part of full-blown web
    application frameworks like Apache::ASP, ePerl, HTML::Embperl, and
    HTML::Mason.

    Nonetheless, I think this module occupies a useful niche: it provides a
    reasonable subset of HTML::Mason syntax in a very light-weight fashion.
    In comparison to the other modules listed, MicroMason aims to be fairly
    lightweight, using one eval per parse, converting the template to an
    cacheable unblessed subroutine ref, eschewing method calls, and
    containing less than a thousand lines of Perl code.

  Compatibility with HTML::Mason

    See the HTML::Mason manpage for a much more full-featured version of the
    capabilities provided by this module.

    If you've already got HTML::Mason installed, configured, and loaded into
    your process, you're probably better off using it rather than this
    package. HTML::Mason's "$interp->make_component()" method allows you to
    parse a text string without saving it to disk first.

    The level of Mason compatibility is described in the
    Text::MicroMason::Mason manpage.

  Compatibility with Other Templating Systems

    I've also recently added mixin classes that emulate the template syntax
    used by Embperl, HTML::Template and Text::Template. Because these
    modules share the underlying implementation of compiling a custom Perl
    subroutine, they theoretically could execute faster than the run-time
    evaluation mechanisms used by the originals, although no benchmarking
    has been performed yet.

DISTRIBUTION
    This is version 1.94_0 of Text::MicroMason.

    This is an EXPERIMENTAL version on a development track for a 2.0
    release.

    This module has been available on CPAN for over two years, with a
    relatively stable interface and feature set. If you encounter any
    problems, please inform the author and I'll endeavor to patch them
    promptly.

    This module's CPAN registration should read:

      Name            DSLIP  Description
      --------------  -----  ---------------------------------------------
      Text::
      ::MicroMason    Rdpfp  Simplified HTML::Mason Templating

    This module should be categorized under group 11, Text Processing.

INSTALLATION
    This module should work with any version of Perl 5, without platform
    dependencies or additional modules beyond the core distribution.

    You should be able to install this module using the CPAN shell
    interface:

      perl -MCPAN -e 'install Text::MicroMason'

    Alternately, you may retrieve this package from CPAN
    ("http://search.cpan.org/~evo/") or from the author's site
    ("http://www.evoscript.org/Text-MicroMason").

    After downloading the distribution, follow the normal procedure to
    unpack and install it, using the commands shown below or their local
    equivalents on your system:

      tar xzf Text-MicroMason-*.tar.gz
      cd Text-MicroMason-*
      perl Makefile.PL
      make test && sudo make install

  Tested Platforms

    This release has been tested succesfully on the following platforms:

      5.6.1 on darwin

    Earlier releases have also tested OK on a wide variety of platforms. You
    may review the current test results from CPAN-Testers:

    * http://testers.cpan.org/show/Text-MicroMason.html

SUPPORT
    If you have questions or feedback about this module, please feel free to
    contact the author at the below address. Although there is no formal
    support program, I do attempt to answer email promptly.

    I would be particularly interested in any suggestions towards improving
    the documentation, correcting any Perl-version or platform dependencies,
    as well as general feedback and suggested additions.

    Bug reports that contain a failing test case are greatly appreciated,
    and suggested patches will be promptly considered for inclusion in
    future releases.

    To report bugs via the CPAN web tracking system, go to
    "http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Text-MicroMason" or send mail
    to "Dist=Text-MicroMason#rt.cpan.org", replacing "#" with "@".

    If you've found this module useful or have feedback about your
    experience with it, consider sharing your opinion with other Perl users
    by posting your comment to CPAN's ratings system
    ("http://cpanratings.perl.org/rate/?distribution=Text-MicroMason").

    For more general discussion, you may wish to post a message on PerlMonks
    ("http://perlmonks.org/?node=Seekers%20of%20Perl%20Wisdom") or on the
    comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup
    ("http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.lang.perl.misc").

AUTHOR
    Developed by Matthew Simon Cavalletto at Evolution Softworks. You may
    contact the author directly at "evo#cpan.org" or
    "simonm#cavalletto.org", replacing "#" with "@".

    Custom development and technical consulting are available at
    "www.evolutionsoftworks.com". More free Perl software is available at
    "www.evoscript.org".

THANKS
    My sincere thanks to the following users for their feedback:

      Pascal Barbedor
      Mark Hampton
      Philip King
      Daniel J. Wright
      William Kern
      Tommi Maekitalo
      Alan Ferrency

INSPIRED BY
    Based on the superb HTML::Mason developed by Jonathan Swartz.

    Portions based on Text::Template developed by Mark Jason Dominus.

    Portions based on HTML::Template developed by Sam Tregar.

LICENSE
    Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004 Matthew Simon Cavalletto.

    Portions copyright 2001 Evolution Online Systems, Inc.

    You may use, modify, and distribute this software under the same terms
    as Perl.

