SwiftBbML

Swift parser for Anthology's Blackboard Markup Language (BbML).

This package includes a V1 compliant parser (with some known limitations) which converts BbML elements into "chunks". Each chunk represents a different type of content that would logically need to be handled differetly by a client application. The current list is:

• text
• image
• document
• video
• math

In the future I will hopefully implement a parser that can convert chunks back into valid BbML.

Usage

To include SwiftBbML in your project, you'll need to include it as a dependency in your Package.swift file:

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/jds691/SwiftBbML.git", from: "1.0.0"),
]

To begin using it in your project, create an instance of BbMLParser and call the parse(_: String) method to receive a list of chunks back out for rendering:

import Foundation
import SwiftBbML

@main
struct BbMLExample {
    static func main() {
        let bbML = "<div><h4>BbML Document</h4><p>Hello, World!</p></div>"
        let parser = BbMLParser()

        do {
            let chunks = try parser.parse(bbML)

            // BbMLContent conforms to Collection
            for chunk in chunks {
                switch chunk {
                    case .text(let attributedString):
                        print(String(attributedString.characters))

                    // Handle the other cases appropriately too...
                    case .image(url: let url, altDescription: let altDescription, renderMode: let renderMode):
                        break
                    case .document(url: let url, attachmentInfo: let attachmentInfo):
                        break
                    case .math(_):
                        break
                    case .video(url: let url):
                        break
                }
            }
        } catch {
            // Handles errors appropriately...
        }
    }
}

// Output:
//
// BbML Document
// Hello, World!

Important

If you are using SwiftBbML in a SwiftUI application, you should configure the parser so it can make SwiftUI specific changes:

let config = BbMLParser.ParserOptions(appUsesSwiftUI: true)
let parser = BbMLParser(options: config)

Known Limitations

• All CSS styles (excluding text-decoration: underline;) are ignored during parsing, which can lead to documents not looking 1:1 to a Blackboard Learn environment.
  • However any styles that would normally implicitly be handled by the user agent are correctly handled e.g. h4-6 are sized correctly, em is correctly italicised, strong is correctly bolded.
• Lists do not render correctly when using SwiftUI.
• The "LTI Content Market" plugin is not supported, despite being documented.
• The "Video Everywhere (aka Collab Integration; aka Collab Video; aka Video Integration)" plugin is not supported, despite being documented.