Subject: Repost: Re: `High-level' format specifications with XSL? From: Sean Mc Grath <digitome@xxxxxx> Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 16:21:27 +0100 |
Sorry if this comes through twice. I sent it some time ago and have not seen it boomerang yet. [Kai Grossjohann] >I use and love LaTeX because it allows me to `semantically' mark up a >document and let the computer worry about making it look good. I just >tell it I want a section with the following heading, and LaTeX >produces the right amount of spacing and the right font weight and >size for the heading and so on, to make the output look good. > >I'd like to use something similar for XSL. >[...] Your point gets to the heart of the formatting Vs transformation conundrum. The scenario you describe can be addressed by an SGML->SGML transformation following by a formatting phase. The transformation phase maps the elements you have to the elements with the required display semantics. I.e. <MySection> -> <H1> and so on. The formatting phase, maps the <H1> to whatever "canned" or user defined display semantics are associated with it. But looked at another way, the scenario you descibe is a single formatting phase mapping your SGML elements to high level flow objects such as H1 etc. Although you cannot say to DSSSL "Create a Level 1 heading according to the XXX Scientific Journal display sematics or the HTML display semantics" you *can* say to DSSSL (actually Jade) "Create a H1 element", "Create a TABLE element" etc. using the SGML back-end. So in a weird way, Jade goes beyond TeX macro packages such as LaTex by allowing the generation of arbitrary SGML outputs and thus arbitrarily higher level flow objects ISO 12083, DocBook etc. I think the SGML/XML world could do with a whole bunch of standard DTDs for Scientific Publishing, Contracts, Memoranda etc. etc. that unashamedly specify their display sematics. Then users of SGML/XML could piggy-back on these back-ends by doing SGML-SGML transformations. </Sean> Sean Mc Grath - http://www.digitome.com/sean.htm XML by Example:Building E-Commerce Applications (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0139601627/digitomeelectronA/) ParseMe.1st - SGML for Software Developers (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0134889673/digitomeelectronA/) XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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