yes, I admit that there are few 'authoratative' xml schemas for
website.....just goes to show you that something that intuitively makes sense
may not be all that logical, maybe its more a statement about how easy it is to
do using xml and xslt.
as for your other question, I find that website modularity is easy to achieve
by using xsl:import or xsl:include, put all your 'std' template definitions
there, then inherit this into your page xslt, the page instantiates the render
that you want, and when you want specific customisation at the page level then
you can do it in the page, of course you still retain the benefit of globally
changing a std templates behavior via edit of the global stylesheet.
this type of thing may lead you to embark on creating libraries of xslt
templates, etc.... . I would suggest the moment things start getting complex to
look into XSLT 2.0, as well as add a framework approach...e.g. use some
overarching controller software from SAX / DOM / JAXP, Cocoon, AxKit,
serverside XSLT to even using Ant to control the XSLT processor this will let
your xslt to do its primary job...that of transforming one xml format into
another, instead of abusing xslt. Though abusing xslt is fun as well.
good luck, jim
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Sumption [mailto:dan(_at_)bradonpace(_dot_)com]
Sent: 18 September 2003 12:48
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: RE: [xsl] Critique/comments sought: XML/XSLT website
documentation project
Possibly you could benefit by reusing existing xml
vocabularies, instead of cooking up your own, when it comes
to creating websites there has been many approaches from the
old Docbook web dtd's to customizing XHTML via modularisation
www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-m12n-schema/. In addition, the Apache
Cocoon effort has a few standard approaches of building
websites with xml/xslt.....
Wouldn't you just know it... I assumed that, given that 90% of people
creating XML are also creating websites, there should be something like
this out there, but despite an exhaustive (well, 10 minutes or so)
search, I couldn't find any schema or DTDs describing websites. But,
like you say, it was certainly good exercise rolling my own.
Thanks for the other tips Jim. One question:
- make the concept of webpage a one to one mapping, each xml
/ xslt should be considered a web page, instead of putting it
on a template basis, will make sense later on.
Do you mean that, instead of one XML file detailing everything on the
website, I should use a collection of XML files, one per page? At first
I couldn't understand why this will make sense later on, but I guess
perhaps you mean if I choose to actually build the website using the XML
as a data-source? I had thought partway this far - that I could spit out
skeleton HTML files based on these definitions - but I think my head
would spin if started trying to get every aspect of the final website
into the XML files. Then again, yes, perhaps it will make sense _much_
later on :)
Dan
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