Subject: Comments Appreciated on Magazine Based on XML/XSL From: Mark Birbeck <Mark.Birbeck@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 16:58:08 +0100 |
Hello everyone, We've just done a 'soft' launch of an on-line magazine called World Link. It's 'soft' because not all of the data is in yet and we're not publicising it, but enough is done to start receiving comments - if you have time ;-) The site is at: http://www.worldlink.co.uk/ Our client is very keen to make proper use of this technology, so if anyone does have comments - don't hold back! (I may regret this :-) The structure is basically: 1. All data is stored in a hierarchical database. Here we have articles, issues, countries, people, companies, events and whatever. 2. Data is extracted from the database as required, as XML. There is no such thing as a 'document' in the normal sense; we create each XML document on the fly by simply extracting a node and all its children. Digging data out just requires the start node to be specified. Our new version implements this better with fragments and a small part of XQL. 3. The XML document is combined with XSL on the server. This was too slow in the previous IE incarnation so we evolved to taking 'snapshots' of the HTML. However, the release version seems faster, and some other changes we have made have increased the performance of the data extraction, so our new version of the site - still in development - actually lets the user combine the data on their browser or performs the combine on the fly. 4. World Link staff can make cross-references between data in the database - articles on the same theme, data entries on countries, and so on - using either our database tools or just typing an XML link syntax around the object. These links are extracted later to make ordinary HTML links. By allowing connections to be just XML we allow for other tools to come along that they could use on their data. 5. Linking to external sites goes through the database, so users create links using a keyword. It's a first attempt at out-of-line links, although we have a much neater version imminent, which uses transclusion. Any link under the heading 'External' on the right side is an OOLL and uses this technique. (Any comments Guy?) 6. Searches using the search field in the top right are traditional searches, where we simply search for the word you enter. e.g., Turkey will find both the country *and* the bird. 7. Searches using the 'Fact Finder' areas will search within the actual category. e.g., a search for Turkey within the 'Countries' area will only search for the country. (It will still find people, companies and articles - it just finds those that refer to the country not the bird.) At the moment this depends on connections being made in the database by World Link via our admin tool, so they are still being entered. If you want to try it out, the Jan/Feb 1999 issue has the most - select this issue from the drop-box and then select 'companies' from the fact finder. 8. The obvious advantage of this technique is to search for only what you want - for example the *country* Turkey, not the bird - but another advantage is that any article that connects to a database object inherits any AKA data from the object. For example, if in the entry for USA there are AKA entries of 'North America' and 'the States', any search for either of these values will yield the relevant article, even if those words don't actually appear in that article. 9. Whilst most of the site is currently a 'snapshot' of previously combined XML and XSL, the search results are actually exported as XML documents and then a stylesheet is applied to create the HTML on the fly. The next release will allow the user or other servers to receive this XML directly - to do with what they will! It's a bit messy at the moment but if you want a look at the crude stuff so far, stick 'debug=true' on the end of any query you've run. For example: http://www.worldlink.co.uk/Find/ObjectRef/67.htm?q1=&duration=THISISSUE& c1=@all&SH=0&objectType=Company&debug=true Sorry there's not a massive amount of direct XML to see, but the next release will expose everything. An interim addition will be an extra icon on each page to allow the XML version of the page to be viewed - probably next week. Still - all comments gratefully received. (If anyone thinks it might be useful I can make available a preview of the new site which has been completely written from scratch based on what we learned from the current site. It uses schemas, fragments and ... XLink!) Regards, Mark Birbeck Managing Director Intra Extra Digital Ltd. 39 Whitfield Street London W1P 5RE w: http://www.iedigital.net/ t: 0171 681 4135 e: Mark.Birbeck@xxxxxxxxxxxxx XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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