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Re: A would-be user's first XSL experience (long)
Subject: Re: A would-be user's first XSL experience (long) From: Paul Prescod <paul@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 23:47:36 -0500 |
Todd Fahrner wrote: > > > I set out to do something as simple as possible. James Tauber's "XSL > Templates by Example" seemed to present simple enough examples: > http://www.xmlsoftware.com/articles/xsl-by-example.html . I > cut-and-pasted bits into InDelv's "Shakespeare" demo XSL files, but > after a few hours of fiddling with various settings, reading specs, > and editing madly away, I gave up. Do you know whether Indelv's browser matches the latest specification? Anyhow, I think that for someone learning the details of the XSL specificaiton a batch, command-oriented process is really best. You are doing an XML->XML transform first and an XML->display format second. You should learn and understand one before moving on to the other. Converting to HTML and viewing the HTML *in a text editor* is the best way to get started. I can't believe that this is really so hard with Code Warrior. On a PC you open up your text editor and there is usually a menu item called "run command line" You type in a command line and it just works. I mean you've got to be willing to go halfway with us. The most uptodate XSL implementation happens to be a command line app because implementing a GUI app is more difficult and invariably takes longer. > Somebody slap an HTML form UI on XP/XT and whatever else is necessary > to make XSL work. I'm sorry but encouraging users -- especially knowledgable users like yourself -- to use cut and paste into an HTML form as a UI for XSL is a little perverse. I mean there's no way to save your work except to paste it out again! And I doubt it would work across browsers. I mean it makes sense for the first hour or so but after that you should figure out a better way! I hate to invoke stereotypes of Mac users but you seem to be begging for it. It seems you'd rather waste an hour a day cutting and pasting instead of a single hour figuring out how to use the tools at your disposal. Consider it an investment -- there's a lot of other interesting command-line driven Java software out there. Once you figure out how to use one, you know how to use them all. > At a minimum, let users provide the URLs of XML > documents linked to XSL stylesheets (or provide the PI manually), and > return the result, whether XHTML, FOs, or some other flavor of XML. Who runs this service? If you want to run it off of your website and allow me to point to it from the next edition of the XML Handbook then I'll help develop it and point to it -- perverse though it is. It's easy as either a servlet or CGI script. We could also take a stab at an applet version. I can easily write the Java portion if you can figure out how to make the JavaScript part pass parameters into Java applets from both major browsers (this might be easy...I've done it befoe but I don't remember if it worked with both). Writing the whole app in Java wouldn't be very difficult but its more work than I have time for. -- Paul Prescod - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco "Silence," wrote Melville, "is the only Voice of God." The assertion, like its subject, cuts both ways, negating and affirming, implying both absence and presence, offering us a choice; it's a line that the Society of American Atheists could put on its letterhead and the Society of Friends could silently endorse while waiting to be moved by the spirit to speak. - Listening for Silence by Mark Slouka, Apr. 1999, Harper's XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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