Pipp is a tool to help build static websites; it is used to produce this website. Pipp can reduce the manual effort needed to perform common tasks, such as:
- Updating content across multiple pages
- Multiple presentations of content (e.g. printable view)
- Hierarchical navigation panes
- Image width and height tags
- Thumbnail images
- Source code with syntax highlighting
- Stylised text headings
A Pipp website is coded in .pip files, which are essentially HTML with some Pipp-specific tags. The tool processes this to produce the HTML website. Pipp works as an XSLT transformation - a stylesheet tuned for your website transforms your source code into HTML ready for publishing. Pipp provides a selection of XSLT helper functions that assist with common web development tasks.
Pipp can be controlled by a command line tool and a Windows system tray application.
Quick Start
Windows: Download and run the Pipp Windows Installer
After install the Pipp icon will appear in the tool tray. Right click this and select "Launch Browser"; the example site will be opened in a browser window. Once you've looked around the site, you can view the source code by right clicking Pipp and choosing "Explore source". The .pip files become the .html files.
Other platforms: Consult the manual installation instructions.
Beginning Your Site
A good way to start is to take the example site and modify it to suit your requirements. To get going:
Try changing some text in a page, and refresh your browser - the changes will be visible immediately. Change a title of a page; the navigation bar is automatically updated on all pages. You can set a logo on a page, and it is inherited by its children, unless overridden. Styles work the same way. You can add a new page by creating a new .pip file (or copying an existing one), and adding a pipp-child directive to its parent.
To update the look of the site, you will need to edit pipp.xsl - an 
XSLT file. You will need basic knowledge of XSLT to make non-trivial changes. To update look of the navigation bar, edit navbar.xsl.
More Information
- Documentation
- Full user documentation explaining how to develop a web site with Pipp. more...
- Internals
- Description of the internal workings of Pipp. Only advanced users should need to read this. more...
- History
- Pipp is over ten years old now; this is its history. more...
