What's the Big Deal With XSL? (Sections 7 and 8)
by G. Ken Holman
April 22, 1999
7 Where to Learn More About XSL
As with so many XML-related resources, Robin Cover's pages on the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) site http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/xsl.html is a valuable resource for XSL information.
To participate in a mail list discussion of XSL issues, Mulberry Technologies is hosting http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list/ where contributors can post questions, answers or opinions about anything related to XSL.
Over the last week I solicited from the list some contributions for XSL-related links for learning more about the technology. Below is what I got, sorted by URL. I haven't checked all of these sites so I cannot vouch for their authenticity, but you may wish to surf and find out. Not as many people responded as I had expected, but the few that I have seem to have a large number of links (many duplicates but the union set is quite informative). I have noticed some of the newsy articles use outdated or outright incorrect syntax examples, but the prose appears to be well intentioned.
Web Developer's Virtual Library XML Training (reference to XSL)
Web Developer's Virtual Library XSL Resources
Century Computing Inc.'s Introduction to XSL (historical context)
Crane Softwrights Ltd.'s Stylesheet Resources and XSL Training Products and Services
Guy Murphy's XSL presentation of the complete works of Shakespeare
Mulberry Technology's XSL Mail List
Robin Cover's XSL Resources
W3C First Working Draft (August 1998 - no longer applicable)
W3C Second Working Draft (December 1998 - current as of April 18, 1999)
W3C Concept Note for XSL (August 1997 - no longer applicable)
W3C Accepted Requirements
XMLephant's XML/XSL Resources Page
XSL by Example
XSL Introduction in PC Magazine
8 Conclusion
Today, your choices in rendering your XML information for consumption are quite clear. With Cascading Stylesheets you can decorate your XML document hierarchy for rich browser painting.
Today, with the Extensible Stylesheet Language you can re-organize your XML document hierarchy into a rich hierarchy for consumption and still apply the semantics of CSS styling for rich browser painting. Investments in learning at this early stage of changing specifications will hold you in good stead for the final version of the recommendation, but remember for production issues it is still a moving target until it is finalized. When it is finalized, remember to hold your vendors to the recommendation to protect yourselves and your customers and users.
Soon, with the completion of the development process, you will be able to re-organize your XML document hierarchy into a rich hierarchy for consumption and apply the semantics of XSL styling for rich rendering in a portable fashion across browser screens, hard-copy media and other rendering devices.
Exciting!
Alphabetical Table of Sections
Accommodating Incompatibilities to Conformance
(4.1.1)
Caveats
(1.1)
Conclusion
(8)
Conformance
(4.1)
CSS - A Great Standard for What It Does
(3)
Features of Note in this Article's Stylesheet
(4.2)
Internet Explorer 5 - A Flavor of XSL for the Desktop
(5)
Introduction
(1)
The Processes of Styling Information
(2)
The Working Draft of the W3C Recommendation for XSL
(6)
The XMLNews Stylesheet Viewer
(5.1)
What Can Be Done For Hard Copy In The Meantime
(4.5)
What Products Supporting XSL Can Do Today
(4.3)
What Products Supporting XSL Will Be Able To Do Soon
(4.4)
Where to Learn More About XSL
(7)
XSL - A Great Standard for What It Can Do and Will Do
(4)
Summary of Links (sorted by caption)
Caption
19981216 Working
Draft
19991216 Working
Draft
agreed-upon requirements
Cascading Stylesheets
Century
Computing Inc.'s Introduction to XSL (historical context)
Click here for the XML version of this
article (requires IE5).
Crane
Softwrights Ltd.'s Stylesheet Resources and XSL Training Products and
Services
first complete
version of IE5
gkh-19990418.xml
Guy Murphy's XSL presentation
of the complete works of Shakespeare
HTML 4.0
http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/xsl/tutorials/conformance.asp
http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list/
http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/xsl.html
Internet
Explorer 5 (IE5) Version 5.00.2014.0216
James Clark's JADE
James Clark's XT XSL Processor
Version 19990307
James Tauber's Formatting Object
Processor (FOP)
last
month's article by Tim Bray
MSDN XSL Pages
Mulberry Technology's
XSL Mail List
Robin Cover's
XSL Resources
snapshot of the XMLNews stylesheet
viewer
Using XSL and CSS
Together
W3C Accepted Requirements
W3C Concept Note for
XSL (August 1997 - no longer applicable)
W3C First Working
Draft (August 1998 - no longer applicable)
W3C Second Working
Draft (December 1998 - current as of April 18, 1999)
W3C Stylesheet Association
Web Developer's Virtual Library XML Training (reference to XSL)
Web Developer's
Virtual Library XSL Resources
XML.com
published version of this article
xmlcom.dtd
xmlcom.msxsl
xmlcom.xsl
XMLephant's XML/XSL Resources
Page
XMLNews web site
XSL (Formatting
Semantics)
XSL by Example
XSL Introduction in PC Magazine
XSL stylesheet for this article
XSL
XSLT (Transformation)
Sorted Summary of Sidebars
Colophon
Editor's Note
Distinguishing IE5 Incompatibilities
Late Breaking News
The CSS Recommendation Documents
The XSL Working Draft Documents
Copyright (C) 1999 Crane Softwrights Ltd.