Are you using xml and xsl?

[Andrew-J2000]

Are you using xml and xsl? What do you think of xsl?

I think it's great, developing in xsl/xml from now on

[Dan Morgan]

To tell you the truth its been on my to do list for a while now.

I really should open a book or something and get cracking because what I have heard its all good.

Care to give us an example of how you have implemented it?

G

[RussellG]

Andrew, I'm also interested in seeing some of your xml/xsl.

[Andrew-J2000]

well i just got started about 15 mins before this post.

http://andrew-j.port5.com/xml.xml

replacing this

http://thesphinx.knows.it

CSS - The Style Sheet of HTML
Because HTML uses predefined tags, the meanings of these tags are well understood: The <p> element defines a paragraph and the <h1> element defines a heading, and the browser knows how to display these elements.

Adding display style characteristics to HTML elements with CSS is a simple process. Telling the browser to display each element using a special font or color, is easy to do and easy for a browser to understand.

XSL - The Style Sheet of XML
Because XML does not use predefined tags (we can use any tags we want), the meanings of these tags are not understood: <table> could mean an HTML table or maybe a piece of furniture. Because of the nature of XML, the browser does not know how to display an XML document.

In order to display XML documents, it is necessary to have a mechanism to describe how the document should be displayed. One of these mechanisms is CSS, but XSL (the eXtensible Stylesheet Language) is the preferred style sheet language of XML, and XSL is far more sophisticated than the CSS used by HTML.

XSL - More than a Style Sheet
XSL consists of three parts:

[list=1][*]a method for transforming XML documents[*]a method for defining XML parts and patterns[*]a method for formatting XML documents [/list=1]

If you don't understand the meaning of this, think of XSL as a language that can transform XML into HTML, a language that can filter and sort XML data, a language that can address parts of an XML document, a language that can format XML data based on the data value, like displaying negative numbers in red, and a language that can output XML data to different devices, like screen, paper or voice.

[RussellG]

Thats neat

I'll have to actually start reading my book on XML I guess.

[Andrew-J2000]

lucky you've got a book, i have to find it the hard way for now

[TheOriginalH]

I see:

XML parsing failed: xml processing instruction not at start of external entity (2:0)

Using Opera 6.01. Can see the source code - so an Opera specific prob?

[TheOriginalH]

Nope, not Opera specific:

XML Parsing Error: xml processing instruction not at start of external entity
Location: http://andrew-j.port5.com/xml.xml
Line Number 2, Column 1?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
^

Using mozilla....

[xhtmlcoder]

Well, I use XML in the form of XHTML and have be doing so since early 2000, and yes I’ve dabbled with pure XML, XSL, DTD and XSLT, but unfortunately I myself have had little use for those latter technologies, perhaps if I wanted to use a database or dynamic site then yes maybe but still you put load on the server.

Then you have things like the Micro$oft browser that was originally developed with a XML parser for the Working Draft rather than the Technical Recommendation, well as they say "XML does absolutely nothing at all" it's not until it is combined or manipulated with other markup, e.g. XPath, that it really becomes useful.

};-) http://www.xhtmlcoder.com/

[moonman]

Learning and moving forward are strictly prohibited in my company, so no.

[Andrew-J2000]

I found the bug that caused the error in netscape/opera, but the xsl/css doesn't format at all in netscape/opera when i change this.

Make sure the mime type for both source and stylesheet are set to a XML mimetype, namely text/xml or application/xml. The XSLT namespace is http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform. Mime type handling in Mozilla is strict, in contrast to IE. Write some cgi, and you'll love it.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xslt/
http://www.nwalsh.com/docs/tutorials/xsl/xsl/frames.htm

that's the new problem but when i put the mimetype in etc, it gets an error?

I hate compatibility lol

[darkfires]

LOL. You have that problem too? :P

Originally posted by moonman
Learning and moving forward are strictly prohibited in my company, so no.

[moonman]

Yeah, if I start learning new stuff I might realise how awful my job is, how bad the money is, and I might leave, leaving my boss to try and find someone that can do the job, but is stupid enough to accept the god awful money.

[darkfires]

Sounds as if you have one option to go with. Start learning new stuff. :>

I should probably start learning XML... problem is, when I go home, I never feel like doing anything computer related except, maybe, chat and gaming, heh.

[moonman]

I know what you mean. After 9 hours infront of one, that's all I can stand for the day. Off to the pub!!

[Maelstrom]

Not too interested. I have other things on my plate that will have more impact on my projects than xml. Maybe in a year or two or when I get to schoo and I am forced to learn it

[redemption]

it was on my todo list for this vacation but i've burned it with my industrial attachment... seems fairly simple to use (though the rhetoric and all those definitons and specifications are totally mind-blowing )