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<section><title>Requirements</title>
<par>To use &xist; you need the following software packages:</par>
<olist>
<item><link href="http://www.python.org/">Python 2.4</link>,</item>
<item><link href="http://pyxml.sf.net/">The Python &xml; package</link> (at least version 0.8.4),</item>
<item><link href="root:core/index.html">ll-core</link> (1.7.1 or newer),</item>
<item>if you want to use automatic image size calculation: the
<link href="http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/">Python Imaging Library</link>,</item>
<item>if you want to parse broken &html;: <link href="http://www.xmlsoft.org/">libxml2</link>
(including its Python wrapper),</item>
<item>if you want want to use the function <function>ll.xist.ns.html.astext</function>
to convert &html; to plain text: <link href="http://elinks.or.cz/">elinks</link>,</item>
<item>if you want to install this package as an egg:
<link href="http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools">setuptools</link>.</item>
<item>if you want to run the test suite: <link href="http://codespeak.net/py/current/doc/test.html">py.test</link>,</item>
<item>and a C compiler supported by <app>distutils</app>, if you want
to install the source distribution.</item>
</olist>
</section>


<section><title>Installation</title>
<par><app moreinfo="http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools">setuptools</app>
is used for installation so you can install this module with the following command:</par>

<prog>
easy_install ll-xist
</prog>

<par>If you want to install from source, you can download one of the
<link href="root:xist/Download.html">distribution archives</link>, unpack it,
enter the directory and execute the following command:</par>
<prog>
python setup.py install
</prog>

<par>This will copy <filename>*.py</filename> files, compile <filename>*.c</filename>
files and install everything in the <dirname>site-packages</dirname>
directory as the <module>ll.xist</module> package.</par>

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

<par>If you have difficulties installing this software, send a problem report
to Walter Dörwald (<email>walter@livinglogic.de</email>).</par>
</section>


<section><title>Character encoding</title>
<par>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;.</par>

<par>If your strings contain non-&ascii; characters you <em>must</em>
pass them as unicode strings to the &xist; constructors and you <em>must</em>
specify the encoding you're using in your source code in the first or second
line of your script (see
<link href="http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0263.html">PEP 263</link> for
a detailed description).</par>
</section>


<section><title>IPython display hooks</title>
<par>If you're using &xist; in an
<link href="http://ipython.scipy.org/">IPython shell</link>, &xist; allows you
to browse through your trees using any of the browsers provided by IPython's
<link href="http://projects.scipy.org/ipython/ipython/wiki/UsingIPipe">ipipe module</link>.</par>

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

<prog>
from ll.xist import presenters
presenters.defaultpresenter = presenters.TreePresenter
</prog>

<par>Setting this value to <lit>None</lit> turns off the display hook.</par>

</section>
