[xsl] Re: multilingual web site

Subject: [xsl] Re: multilingual web site
From: Joerg Pietschmann <joerg.pietschmann@xxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 11:03:13 +0100
Try this:
1. Look at your HTML-Files, preferably through a browser. Identify
   sets of pages with similar layout. Discard small details and
   differences here. Ideally you would have one set, but its
   more likely you will between 4 and 8 sets. Some sets may have
   only a few files in them.
2. Take one example from each set. Try to classify the stuff thats
   there: Navigation, Titles, Content etc. Build one or more XML
   DTDs from this analysis.
3. Write the XML for the examples above by hand. You can cut&paste
   stuff (content) from the HTML source.
4. Write an XSL sheet for each of the examples above by hand, so that
   the result resembles the original layout. A quick start is to use
   the HTML-files and replace the original content by xsl:value-of
   and occasionally xsl:for-each. A complete rewrite bottom up is
   better in the long run but frustrating at the beginning.
   Refine the DTD and the example XML as necessary.
   You should now have the XML structure and the style sheets for
   your layout classes.
5. Use a tool like htmltidy on your HTML files, which should result
   in an XMLification. You can use XSL on them now, try to build
   XSL sheets for each layout set to get as much content automatically
   transformed in your XML as possible. If there are only a handful of
   files in one set, it may be easier to do this completely manually.
6. Iterate or stop. :-)

Of course, changing the base technology of your site may be a good
point for thinking about reengineering and rebuilding everything.

Ask again if you find details missing.

J.Pietschmann
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