Creating Multipage HTML

[slaterino]

Hi,
I have chosen to use XML for a project as it is a project that needs to produce a web page and PDF from the same content, and which also could be the first of many, and I figured that this would make things a lot easier as it would just be a case of using the existing XML structure.

Anyway, I am finding the process a bit of a steep learning curve. At the moment I am looking at designing an .xsl to transform the .xml into my website and possibly just importing the .xml into Adobe InDesign for now to do my .pdf.

However, the thing I can't seem to work out is the best way to design the website. I have created a .xsl file which makes the front page look perfectly but don't know how to start generating multiple .html pages. At the moment I am doing all my transforming in Oxygen. I have looked into editing some of the Frameworks, Docbook HTML Chunks for example, but just can't work out where to start. I basically need to change the structure a lot, and already have some .css stylesheets which I was hoping to add but am struggling with it.

Is this the best way of doing it? By using one of the existing frameworks and customizing it? I am finding that a lot of the information out there on XML and XSL is so full of jargon and overly-descriptive instructions that it is confusing the hell out of me. If someone could offer some advice or maybe tell me where a good place is to find some information/tutorials on creating a website from XML in chunks I would be extremely grateful!!

Thanks
Russ

[adrian]

Hello,

On the W3C page you will find a useful example of a stylesheet that uses xsl:result-document and generates HTML chunks from an XML file:
http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#d5e27003 or
http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt20/#element-result-document
I can also tell you that this is how most of the oxygenxml.com website is generated.

Adopting an existing framework is the easiest way to get you started. Existing frameworks usually have most of the visual editing actions already defined for Author mode so you can start writing content right away and they also have predefined transformations for generating HTML/PDF content.

Regards,
Adrian

[slaterino]

Yeah, I found the result-document tag in the end, and am now playing around with getting it working.

I have a question about the frameworks though. At the moment I am trying to write a .xsl document from scratch that will do my transformations. This is because I was looking through all the existing transformation scenarios in Oxygen and there just seemed to be too much going on for me to get my head around and the instructions for creating customizations in the Oxygen User Manual were so confusing. But, is this what you mean by the existing frameworks I can use? I am still getting my head around some of the terminology regarding XML/XSL and just want to check I am understanding what exactly you are saying!!!

[adrian]

Yes, I was talking about the Oxygen frameworks(Document types as they are referred in Oxygen) which are usually wrapped around a public framework. For example the Docbook framework in Oxygen is using the DocBook XSL for transformation. However the Oxygen frameworks are customizations meant to improve the visual editing in the Author mode while also providing means to publish the documents.

The instructions for creating Oxygen Author customizations refer to creating custom actions for visual editing inside the application, or customizing the visual editing in some way. I don't believe they are helpful in your quest for a custom stylesheet.

Regards,
Adrian