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Re: [xsl] Is letting the browser transform XML to XHTML using XSLT a good choice?

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On Friday 03 March 2006 3:38 pm, Didier PH Martin wrote:
> You said:
> 1) Google is based on the source code, and will ignore your webpages.

> I reply:
> Are you sure of that? How do you know? Is this confirmed by somebody else?

Put this into Google:
codehelp XML language syntax

The page you will get back has only a link to the HTML page. There is an XML 
page, using browser-side XSLT to convert to XHTML but Google doesn't know 
about that. If the HTML page had not been created for non-XML capable 
browsers, Google would not know anything about it. For some time, I had some 
example pages that only existed in XML. Those pages simply did not exist in 
Google.

My way around this was to implement some PHP scripts that output XML if the 
browser claims to support it, HTML to others and WML to mobiles. Google only 
sees the HTML output.

> You said:
> 2) Blind people's screen readers are based on the source code, and will not
> be able to use your webpages.
>
> I reply:
> Which browser are you referring to?

A good test browser is lynx. If your site isn't usable in lynx, it will cause 
difficulties for those with more limited browsers. It's not nice to assume 
that others have the ability or skill to use a "recommended" browser. Build 
for everyone, not just your friends.

> Hence, if they are using 
> usual web browsers and Braille readers (like JAWS for example), they will
> have access to the text included in the web page.

In my case, the text of the XML alone can leave a visitor stranded without 
obvious means of navigation. XML isn't a web page, it's a data document.

> For instance, to get 
> access to the "title" or the "alt" attributes of an <img> element. In other
> words, they have access to the result of the transformation.

It's not always a good decision to expect everyone to have such luxuries.

> Braille reader. So, if people with this kind of disability you know,
> actually use a browser accessing only the source of web pages, then do them
> a favor and tell them about more modern tools like, for instance, the one I
> mentioned.

IMHO it's better to provide content that visitors can use without specialised 
software.

http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/

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Neil Williams
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http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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