Skip to main content

Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/nishad12323/py2html/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Parent is the central class in py2html. Every HTML document you build starts with a Parent instance — it holds an ordered list of element descriptors (self.tags) and provides methods to add elements, configure document-level properties, and render the final HTML string. All element-creation methods (Button, Frame, Link, etc.) are also defined on this class and are documented separately on the Elements page.

​
Constructor

​
Parent()

Creates a new, empty HTML document object. No arguments are required. 
import py2html

page = py2html.Parent()
After construction, the instance exposes two attributes:
AttributeTypeInitial valuePurpose
self.htmlstr""Scratch buffer written to during rendering
self.tagslist[]Ordered list of element descriptor dicts

​
Configuration Methods

​
config(**kwargs)

Sets document-level properties in a single call. Currently supports two keyword arguments: title and style. Any combination may be supplied; omitted keys are left unchanged.
​
title
str
Sets the document title, stored as self.title. The value is coerced to str before storing, so integers and other types are accepted.
​
style
str
Sets a document-level style string, stored as self.style. Must be a str — passing any other type raises ValueError.
Returns: None Raises: ValueError — if style is provided but is not a str. 
import py2html

page = py2html.Parent()
page.config(title="My Site", style="body { font-family: sans-serif; }")
config() stores title and style as instance attributes but does not automatically inject <style> tags into the rendered output. Use a CustomTag or Script element to embed stylesheet content.

​
title(title)

A convenience method that sets self.title to str(title). Equivalent to calling config(title=...) with a single argument.
​
title
any
required
The document title. Coerced to str before being stored.
Returns: None 
page = py2html.Parent()
page.title("Welcome to py2html")
config(title=...) and title() both write to the same self.title attribute, so the last call wins if you use both.

​
Dunder Methods

​
__call__(*args, escape=True, sep=" ")

Makes a Parent instance callable. Joining all positional args with sep, it calls TextNode() internally and appends the resulting text node to self.tags.
​
*args
str
required
One or more strings to join and insert as a text node.
​
escape
bool
default:"True"
When True (default), HTML-special characters in the joined text are escaped via escapeCharacters(). Set to False to insert raw HTML.
​
sep
str
default:"\" \""
The separator used when joining multiple positional arguments.
Returns: The last tag descriptor in self.tags — i.e., self.tags[-1] (a dict). 
page = py2html.Parent()

# Single string
page("Hello, world!")

# Multiple strings joined by a space (default separator)
page("Line one.", "Line two.")

# Custom separator — no spaces between
page("Left", "Right", sep="")

# Raw HTML — no escaping
page("<strong>Bold text</strong>", escape=False)
__call__ returns self.tags[-1], not the index. If you need the integer index, call self.TextNode() directly — it returns len(self.tags) - 1.

​
__getitem__(index)

Retrieves the tag descriptor at the given index from self.tags.
​
index
int
required
Zero-based integer index into self.tags.
Returns: dict — the tag descriptor at self.tags[index]. Raises: IndexError — if index < 0 or index >= len(self.tags). 
page = py2html.Parent()
idx = page.Button(text="Click me")

descriptor = page[idx]
print(descriptor["content"])  # "Click me" (escaped)
Negative indexing is not supported. Passing -1 raises IndexError. Use page[len(page.tags) - 1] to access the last element explicitly.

​
__delitem__(index)

Deletes the tag descriptor at the given index from self.tags, removing that element from the rendered output.
​
index
int
required
Zero-based integer index of the tag to remove.
Returns: None Raises: IndexError — if index < 0 or index >= len(self.tags). 
page = py2html.Parent()
page.Heading(text="Title")        # index 0
btn_idx = page.Button(text="Go")  # index 1

del page[0]  # removes the Heading
# page.tags now contains only the Button
Deleting an element shifts all subsequent indices down by one. Store indices before bulk deletions or iterate in reverse order.

​
__str__()

Returns the fully rendered, prettified HTML string for the document. Equivalent to calling page.getHTML(format=True, insideframe=False). Returns: str — the complete HTML document, including <html>, <head>, and <body> wrappers, formatted by BeautifulSoup’s prettify(). 
page = py2html.Parent()
page.Heading(text="Hello")
page.Button(text="Click")

print(page)          # prints formatted HTML
html_str = str(page) # same result as a string

​
Utility Method

​
escapeCharacters(text)

Converts a raw string into HTML-safe text and applies py2html’s lightweight inline markup syntax. This method is called automatically by every element method that accepts a text or content argument — you rarely need to call it directly.
​
text
any
required
The input value. Coerced to str before processing.
Returns: str — the escaped and markup-processed string. The method performs the following transformations in order:
Input tokenHTML output
&&amp;
<&lt;
>&gt;
"&quot;
'&#39;
\n<br>
\t&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
[c … c]<center> … </center>
[xs … xs]<span style='font-size: 0.6rem;'> … </span>
[xxs … xxs]<span style='font-size: 0.4rem;'> … </span>
[l … l]<span style='font-size: 1.2rem;'> … </span>
[xl … xl]<span style='font-size: 1.5rem;'> … </span>
[xxl … xxl]<span style='font-size: 2rem;'> … </span>
[xxxl … xxxl]<span style='font-size: 3rem;'> … </span>
[s … s]<span style='font-size: 0.8rem;'> … </span>
[m … m]<span style='font-size: 1rem;'> … </span>
[` … `]<code> … </code>
[``` … ```]<pre><code> … </code></pre>
[* … *]<strong> … </strong>
[_ … _]<em> … </em>
page = py2html.Parent()

raw = 'Hello <World> & "py2html"\n[* Bold *] and [_ italic _].'
safe = page.escapeCharacters(raw)
print(safe)
# Hello &lt;World&gt; &amp; &quot;py2html&quot;<br><strong> Bold </strong> and <em> italic </em>.
Use the inline markup tokens inside any text or content argument — for example page.Label(text="[* Important *]") — without calling escapeCharacters() yourself.

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us