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Mozilla + CSS + XML = Structured, Formatted Content

Saqib Ali writes "Publishing XML content on the web requires some heavy processing on the server. There are many publishing framework (AxKit, Cocoon, etc) available in the market. However they are very CPU intensive. Apple's Internet Developer has a article on how to use CSS along with your XML content to render the formatted content in the Mozilla Web browser. It is very interesting read, especially for people who want to start creating content in XML, but don't want to invest in a expensive processing server/application. They have a nice example of RSS feed (XML) formatted for publishing in the browser."

16 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. *ahem* by DarkVein · · Score: 3, Funny

    tu slashdot?

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    I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.

    1. Re:*ahem* by DarkVein · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not off topic in the least. Slashdot uses antiquated HTML and CSS. It has no reason to use javascript on the front page. It uses tables for layout, when paragraphs would serve, and <img> when background-image would serve. Contextual markup would make the page more accessible to every sort of device, including PDAs and cellphones. Slashdot should move to XHTML 1.1, which is an application of XML.

      There's more, but I thought "for slashdot?" would be quite succinct. If nothing else, slashdot could cut its bandwidth usage in half, and serve the exact same HTML for the "light" and full-bloat^Hn themes.

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      I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.

  2. web log analysis by DeadSea · · Score: 2

    I'm working on a some web log analysis software to license under the GPL. The output will be XML that is linked to CSS and Javascript. Besides being easily parsed by another program, the output is pretty, and the tables can all be sorted by any of their columns. It uses DOM Level2 functions called from MergeSort implemented in Javascript. Watch my website, I should have it done, or at least a first version within a couple weeks.

  3. Moving processing from servers to clients? by fredrikj · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just when you think Phoenix has saved you thousands of precious CPU cycles over Mozilla, something like this pops up and fills the hole. Doh!

    1. Re:Moving processing from servers to clients? by Komarosu · · Score: 2, Informative

      IE 5.5 is fine here.

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      "What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
    2. Re:Moving processing from servers to clients? by dbaron · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What matters to users isn't how many CPU cycles transformations take, but how fast they are. In many cases, using a bit of CPU on the client will lead to a much faster transition than retrieving a complete new page from the server (after having the server's CPU do the same work).

      However, it's worth noting that it's probably a bad idea to send large amounts of data in XML formats without known semantics over the web. Semantically rich formats such as (X)HTML, MathML, etc., can be interpreted better by user agents other than those the author intended them for (e.g., cell phones with web browsers, speech web browsers, search engines), while formats such as XSL-FO or some custom XML vocabulary used within a single application for data storage can't be interpreted nearly as well on such devices. I have mixed feelings about relaxing this guideline for interactive applications, although I think if the interactive applications are generating their output on the client side in a format with known semantics then most of the problems go away, although the chances that the formats will continue to work for a long time in the future might be diminished.

  4. Problems in Mozilla and Konqueror pre-3.1 by oever · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The link mentioned doesn't work well in Mozilla 1.2.1: no hyperlink.

    And konqueror can't even render the page. It says its invalid:

    XML parsing error

    fatal parsing error: the document is not in the correct file format in line 6, column 37
    <link>http://www.scottandrew.com</link&gt ;
    ^

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    DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
    1. Re:Problems in Mozilla and Konqueror pre-3.1 by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 2
      It says: "you'll need Mozilla 1.0 or better to experience it." I use Mozilla 1.0 and it works just fine for me. Clearly, Mozilla 1.2.1 is not better than Mozilla 1.0.

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      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
  5. Having CSS functionality in XML is a Good Thing, but would it not be worth waiting for a full implementation of XSL functionality on the client side before embarking on a full-on application?

  6. Server side? by Komarosu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I thought the idea of XML was really to keep it server side...u know this whole platform independant thing they've been working to for ages? Dont wanna sound like a flamer but it seems pritty stupid to start the "oh you need this browser to view this site" wars again. Had enough of that in ye-olden days of NS vs. IE :)

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    "What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
    1. Re:Server side? by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 2
      it seems pritty stupid to start the "oh you need this browser to view this site" wars again.
      "start...again"? Don't you mean "continue"?
      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
  7. Re:Odd... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2

    I feel your pain about getting XML/XSLT things working. Alas, until recently, Moz didn't handle basics like xsl:number properly, and the suggested workaround was "don't use it". Um... no. That made Moz pretty much useless for any serious XML/XSLT work I was doing. Apparently, that particular gremlin was a well-known one, and should be fixed in Moz 1.2, though, so maybe things are coming around slowly but surely...

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    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
  8. Re:Bah. Boring. What's NEEDED is this: by Curien · · Score: 2

    Umm... yeah. Can show me how serialize C structs in *any* portable data format easily? Serialization in C is non-trivial. Serialization in a portable format is *incredibly* non-trivial.

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    It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
  9. Re:Bah. Boring. What's NEEDED is this: by Curien · · Score: 2

    Yeah, that's all well and good when you're writing managed code. Data structures in managed code have all sorts of nifty bits of meta-information floating about.

    Now back to my point that serializing C structs is non-trivial.

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    It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
  10. Re:XSLT? by vbweenie · · Score: 4, Informative

    One typical use of XSLT is as a translator between marked-up data (XML) exported from somewhere and a marked-up hypertext document (HTML) presenting that data or a subset of it for the web.

    Neither the XML nor the HTML will necessarily contain any formatting information beyond HTML's fairly basic set of tags, so you might still need CSS to finesse the layout and appearance.

    An alternative is to translate from XML via XSLT into XSL:FO, and from there into PDF (using Apache's FOP). This is a still-maturing technology, however, and it's a bit verbose for my liking - but you can say that about most of the X* family...

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    Experience is a hard school, but fools will learn no other.
  11. Re:Bah. Boring. What's NEEDED is this: by Felipe+Hoffa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maybe gSOAP is the answer for your needs.

    It is a library for C and C++ that generates codes for using (as a client) or providing (as a service) web services using the SOAP standard (based on XML).

    If you give gSOAP a header file with the methods and structures of your code, it will generate all the needed methods and XML descriptors without giving you much trouble. From there it will be easy to serialize all your data in and out, and you won't have to care about the details of the XMLs. As an added benefit you will be able to share your data with software written in several other languages.

    Fh