General

What is TurtleScript?

TurtleScript is a technique for including semantic data in a web page using the RDF/Turtle language.


What does a TurtleScript page look like?

To a person, a TurtleScript page looks much like any other web page. It may have useful information displayed in tables or other visual elements, but that is not necessary. An example TurtleScript page is available at http://turtlescript.sourceforge.net/example/example.html .

To a TurtleScript-aware program, a TurtleScript page has information and relations that are much richer than simply a collection of words.


What are the benefits of TurtleScript?

TurtleScript doesn't intermix the semantic data with the HTML and CSS. It uses the easy to learn Turtle syntax. It can be used both by both the browser and by other client programs.


Where can I find more information about Turtle?

Turtle - Terse RDF Triple Language is the defining document for Turtle. It includes examples and a discussion of related technologies.

The Wikipedia page for Turtle is available at Turtle (syntax)".


What are some other ways of embedding semantic data in web pages?

Microformats are a technique for embedding semantic data in the CSS styles of an HTML document. It is not an RDF syntax, but conversions exist.

RDFa is a way to embed RDF data in the CSS styles of an HTML document. The semantic information is spread throughout the HTML.

GRDDL is a way for web sites to provide XSLT stylesheets to convert their XHTML pages to RDF format.

Data can also be stored in an HTML document in the form of JSON, XML, or other formats. There are no standard conversions of such data to semantic web formats, though custom conversions are often possible.


What software libraries currently read TurtleScript?

No libraries currently read TurtleScript out of the box. It is designed to be easy to read the turtle script from an HTML file. Many libraries are then able to read (and write) the Turtle syntax.

Libraries that can read Turtle include: Jena, Redland and RDFlib.

Web Developers

Where can I find a good turtle editor?
Many RDF editors can save to Turtle or N3 format.
What if I have RDF data, but it is in another format such as RDF/XML?
There are conversion tools such as the morph Semantic Converter from Talis.
Do I need to include the TurtleScript and ANTLR JavaScript libraries in my web page to use TurtleScript?
You need to include the libraries if you want to access the semantic information from your JavaScript. Third party tools are able to read and use the semantic data in your web page even if the libraries are not there.
Are there any validators for turtlescript?

There are no online validators for TurtleScript at this time. There are several online validators for Turtle, such as the RDF Validator and Converter.

An offline validator for TurtleScript is on the roadmap to be added to the project.

Contributors

How can I help?

TurtleScript is in its early stages, but there are many places to help it develop.

If you have compiler writing experience, particularly with the ANTLR3 library, the TurtleScript Turtle to JavaScript parser needs to support the entire Turtle language. It should properly parse all example and test cases.

If you have Java or Python experience, particularly with the Jena library, offline and online validators are in the works.

If you have JavaScript experience, a wider range of example applications is needed to demonstrate the utility of TurtleScript.

If you have Semantic Web experience in RDF, N3, Turtle, SPARQL, OWL, microformats or RDFa, you can help with conversion and compatibility between TurtleScript and other Semantic Web technologies.

If you have a web site and would like to provide semantic data, your real-world use cases are extremely valuable. Even if TurtleScript in its present form does not appear to meet your needs, you may be able to suggest directions for the future evolution of the project.

There are many other ways to help out the TurtleScript project. Please don't hesitate to contact the team.


How do I deploy a snapshot to SourceForge?

First log in to a sourceforge shell account. See Deploying to Sourceforge.net for more details.

mvn deploy:deploy-file -DgroupId=net.sf.TurtleScript -DartifactId=TurtleScript -Dversion=0.0.1-SNAPSHOT -Dpackaging=jar -DrepositoryId=turtlescript.sourceforge.snapshot.repo -Durl=scp://shell.sourceforge.net/home/groups/t/tu/turtlescript/htdocs/repo/m2-snapshot-repository  -Dfile=target/TurtleScript-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar -DuniqueVersion=false

You'll need your Sourceforge authentication configured in your maven site.xml file.


How do I build a maven documentation site in a staging directory?

In the top level project directory:

mvn clean site:stage -DstagingDirectory=c:\stage
How do I deploy a site snapshot to SourceForge?

First log in to a sourceforge shell account. See Deploying to Sourceforge.net for more details.

mvn site-deploy

You'll need your Sourceforge authentication configured in your maven site.xml file.