Re: Isn't it possible to use XSL to present a XML document on a browser?

Subject: Re: Isn't it possible to use XSL to present a XML document on a browser?
From: "John E. Simpson" <simpson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 09:08:29 -0400
At 02:58 PM 4/22/1999 +0900, motoki wrote:
>Someone said that it was  not possible  to use XSL for the purpose,
>because XSL was not recommended yet.
>
>But another told me the following;
>
>You can use XSL to present a XML document SO LONG AS you use it with
>CSS2.
>
>The reason is XSL has two functions.
>
>1:making tree construction form the original XML document.
>2:giving style to each object of the tree.  
>
>and XSL supports only the former function now.  Instead of the latter,
>you must use css2.
>So this means that to present a XML document on a browser you have to
>use XSL(for making tree construction)AND CSS2 (for giving style to the
>document).

Both stories are true, with qualification. The first is true as long as you
understand that yes, XSL is still only in the Working Draft stage and
therefore subject to revision. (Indeed a new version was just released
yesterday.) The second one is very close to the mark. Taken as a whole, XSL
typically provides instructions for how to transform the original document
(the source tree) into a result tree, which can be very similar to or
completely different from the original. The result tree may consist of
"renderable" nodes, i.e. formatting objects, or FOs. It may also consist of
quasi-renderable nodes in the form of HTML, which may of course be styled
using CSS1 or 2. Finally, it may consist of nodes that are no more
"renderable" than those in the source tree, which would be the case when
using XSLT to transform one XML application to another.

For rendering XML directly, you don't necessarily need to go through an
XML->XSL->HTML process... "all" you need is a browser capable of reading
either raw XML or raw XML styled with CSS. Both IE5 and Gecko support the
latter to varying degrees. If you open a raw XML document with IE5, you see
a collapsible/expandable representation of the document tree.

HTH.
=============================================================
John E. Simpson          | It's no disgrace t'be poor, 
simpson@xxxxxxxxxxx      | but it might as well be.
                         |            -- "Kin" Hubbard


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