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triple model of layout
Subject: triple model of layout From: Andy Dent <dent@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 03:26:30 +0800 |
(a little delayed, due to a bounce. Changing your reply-to address is NOT a good idea without resubscribing to all your favourite lists :-) I'm being my usual arrogant/stupid self here but I think I'm working toward a better idea of a fundamental flaw in the stylesheet model. This is only a flaw in some contexts and maybe not one which others a lot of xsl-list subscribers. Please excuse my fumbling after a clean model here - I'm not attacking the establishment for fun. Anyway, I think in many ways we have it backwards. Stylesheets at present seem to be heavily coupled to a single XML file. The model appears to be - transform XML tree to output tree - add formatting to output tree - render in browser Just for a change, consider a simplistic user model for publishing reports: - layout the report - attach formatting to areas of layout - pour data into the report. In some ways these models are equivalent. The important difference is that my publishing model a) concentrates on coupling the formatting to a simply specified layout b) abstracts the mapping from source data to layout. I think this model can lead to more reusable stylesheets. The reusable portion is the formatted layout. The mapping sheet needs customising (possibly) for different content. By coupling the formatting to a simply-defined layout, it's not lost in nitty-gritty transformation rules. I'm being driven here by the needs of users who want to exercise thematic control over a wide variety of reports, many of which will have essentially the same layout but differing content. One of the aspects which may vary in the mapping, for example, is that a given table may have varying numbers of columns with different source data. I don't think this scenario is very different from people publishing complex web sites. I've got a horrifying workload before leaving for Macworld but I wanted to get these early ideas out to spark discussion. Andy Dent BSc MACS AACM, Software Designer, A.D. Software, Western Australia OOFILE - Database, Reports, Graphs, GUI for c++ on Mac, Unix & Windows PP2MFC - PowerPlant->MFC portability http://www.highway1.com.au/adsoftware/crossplatform.html In SF for Macworld Jan 1st-9th 1999, at the AppMaker stand in DevDepot XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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