triple model of layout

[Andy Dent <dent@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(a little delayed, due to a bounce. Changing your reply-to address is NOT a
good idea without resubscribing to all your favourite lists :-)

I'm being my usual arrogant/stupid self here but I think I'm working toward
a better idea of a fundamental flaw in the stylesheet model. This is only a
flaw in some contexts and maybe not one which others a lot of xsl-list
subscribers.

Please excuse my fumbling after a clean model here - I'm not attacking the
establishment for fun.

Anyway, I think in many ways we have it backwards. Stylesheets at present
seem to be heavily coupled to a single XML file. The model appears to be

- transform XML tree to output tree
- add formatting to output tree
- render in browser

Just for a change, consider a simplistic user model for publishing reports:

- layout the report
- attach formatting to areas of layout
- pour data into the report.

In some ways these models are equivalent. The important difference is that
my publishing model
a) concentrates on coupling the formatting to a simply specified layout
b) abstracts the mapping from source data to layout.

I think this model can lead to more reusable stylesheets. The reusable
portion is the formatted layout. The mapping sheet needs customising
(possibly) for different content.

By coupling the formatting to a simply-defined layout, it's not lost in
nitty-gritty transformation rules.

I'm being driven here by the needs of users who want to exercise thematic
control over a wide variety of reports, many of which will have essentially
the same layout but differing content. One of the aspects which may vary in
the mapping, for example, is that a given table may have varying numbers of
columns with different source data.

I don't think this scenario is very different from people publishing
complex web sites.

I've got a horrifying workload before leaving for Macworld but I wanted to
get these early ideas out to spark discussion.


Andy Dent BSc MACS AACM, Software Designer, A.D. Software, Western Australia
OOFILE - Database, Reports, Graphs, GUI for c++ on Mac, Unix & Windows
PP2MFC - PowerPlant->MFC portability
http://www.highway1.com.au/adsoftware/crossplatform.html
In SF for Macworld Jan 1st-9th 1999, at the AppMaker stand in DevDepot


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