XML Articles and Tutorials

Last Modified:     September 11, 2002

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XML and PHP New Riders September 11, 2002	This week wraps up a look at "XML and PHP" with a few examples demonstrating how WDDX makes it possible to exchange data between different sites and systems in a simple and elegant manner. From New Riders.
XML and PHP New Riders September 4, 2002	Vikram Vaswani demonstrates how WDDX can be combined with PHP to encode and exchange data across different systems and platforms. Book excerpt from New Riders.
SOAP, the Simple Object Access Protocol Charlie Morris November 6, 2000	SOAP is an XML-based protocol that lets you activate an application, or even an individual object or method within an application, across the Internet. SOAP could revolutionize the whole process of developing Web applications.
Beginning XHTML - Book Excerpt Wrox Press October 30, 2000	Chapter 13 of Beginning XHTML, from Wrox Press covers different media types and why they are necessary. Main subjects include the role of Cascading Style Sheets in supporting media types, the differences between media types and how to handle them and the future of style sheets in XML.
Building Languages with XML Charlie Morris September 5, 2000	The Extensible Markup Language allows you to create custom languages (technically called vocabularies) for particular applications, which can be anything from a Web page to an e-commerce interface to a game to a complete virtual world. Here's an overview of how (and why) to create your own custom XML vocabularies, as well as examples of some existing ones.
Introduction to XHTML, with eXamples by Alan Richmond	Update: XHTML 1.0 was released on January 26th as a Recommendation by the W3C. XHTML 1.0 is the first step toward a modular and extensible web based on XML (Extensible Markup Language). It provides the bridge for web designers to enter the web of the future, while still being able to maintain compatibility with today's HTML 4 browsers.
Offsite XML-Related Tutorials by Various Authors	We've collected the best free XML-related tutorials from non-WDVL authors below. If you have other favorites, contact Ken Sall. Miloslav Nic's Zvon Tutorials: XSLT, XML, DTD, XPath, Namespace, DOM, RDF, WML, VoiceXML, XUL, CSS, Schematron and more. See also Zvon's XSLT Reference, XML Glossary, X Lab, and the Reference Quick Search. G. Ken Holman's Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath (XSL Transformations and the XML Path Language) Eric Armstrong's Working with XML, the Java XML Tutorial: XML, Java, SAX and DOM Norm Walsh's XSL Tutorial from XML99: XSLT, XSL-FO and XPath Elliotte Rusty Harold's XML Seminars, Tutorials, and Presentations: XML, DTD, XLink, XPointer, XSLT and more Doug Tidwell's 3-part article: Transforming XML, Transforming XML into SVG , and Transforming XML into PDF. Anders Møller's and Michael I. Schwartzbach's XML Revolution: Technologies for the future Web cover XML, Namespaces, DTDs, XLink, XPointer, XPath, XSLT, XML-QL, and DSD. Jeni's XSLT Pages Lisa Rein's Finetuning.com XML Tutorials: XSL and CSS, XML Basics, HTML as XML, XML in IE5 W3Schools (formerly XML School): tutorials in HTML, CSS, DHTML, XHTML, WML, XML, XSL, DTD, DOM, WAP, SOAP, XSchema, XForms and more. Somewhat Microsoft focused. Sister site is XML101.com. Extropia's XML/DTD Tutorial Jose Ramirez's Learning SMIL with a SMIL
Doing It With SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), Part 1 by Ken Sall	SVG is positioned to have a major impact on Web graphics because it enables resolution independent graphic rendering either from static text files or when generated from databases, and because it leverages many of the useful features of the XML family of specifications.
XML vs. HTML	Is HTML 4.0 the end of the road? Will all future changes be in terms of XML? Will there be an HTML Classic? See what the W3C has to say on their HTML Activity page and in a members-only workshop entitled Shaping the Future of HTML (May 1998).
XML and Java by Ken Sall	Why are so many Java programmers interested in XML? What Java APIs exist to interface to XML? What tools written in Java are already available? Read WDVL's 3-part article to find out. See XML and Java: The Perfect Pair.
Doing It with XML by Ken Sall	In this XML tutorial, Ken Sall turns to some of the practical considerations facing Web developers of every level. How can you get started with XML now? How can you go from an XML document instance to a DTD? How can you view the results? How can Internet Explorer 5 and other free or inexpensive tools help? How can you edit the XML in a way that guarantees it will match the DTD? How can you use CSS or XSL to control both the presentation and processing of your XML?
Doing It With XML, Part 2 by Ken Sall	This month we focus on several inexpensive tools for editing XML: XML Pro, XML Spy, Xeena, and XML EditorMaker. How to use CSS (cascading Style Sheets) or XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language) to control both the presentation and processing of your XML (especially in IE 5) is also covered. A more complete WDVL treatment of XSL will follow later this summer and fall when the XSL Working Draft becomes a full W3C Recommendation
Next Generation HTML: The Big Picture by Ken Sall updated Jan. 31, 1999	This WDVL article focuses on the way in which the various specifications fit into the Big Picture of the efforts of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Next Generation HTML encompasses Cascading Style Sheets, HTML 4.0, the Document Object Model, Dynamic HTML, the XML family of specifications, and the many specifications based on XML, such as RDF, SMIL, and MathML. When we read about a W3C specification, it is useful to understand its role in the larger picture. To help you visualize the Big Picture, we introduce a graphic which doubles as an imagemap to whisk you directly to pages containing details about each topic. A color coding key in the imagemap informs you of the current status of each W3C document. We've also included an acronym expansion chart because the buzz words are far too many to remember.
Introduction to XML For Web Developers by Selena Sol	Regardless of its mild-mannered appearance, XML is one of the most exciting and potentially powerful internet standards/technologies to be released in quite some time. XML allows web developers to abstract data sets from data formatting and data description in a way that makes applications much more easy to program, and data sets far more portable. In this tutorial, Selena Sol walks you through XML and the sister XSL style sheet language. Using simple, well-explained examples, Sol shows you how to get up to speed with the syntax of XML as well as helps you develop the more intuitive skill of learning how and when to apply XML to a problem.
Introduction to XML For Web Developers, Part 2 by Selena Sol	As was discussed in part one, XML allows you to generate an infinite number of custom tags sets for your documents. However, though you are free to be as innovative as you want with the XML tag sets that you create, you must follow the constraints of the XML tag set generation standards exactly. In other words, your XML documents must be "well-formed". Well-formedness has an exact meaning in XML. Specifically, a well-formed document adheres to the syntax rules specified by the XML 1.0 specification. In this month's tutorial, Selena will look at those rules in depth.
Introduction to XML for Web Developers, Part 3 by Selena Sol	As you have seen in the previous sections of this tutorial, there are many rules you must follow in order to assure that your XML document is well-formed. But even when you write well-formed XML documents, you're not quite out of the woods! Making your document well-formed is only half the battle. You must also make sure that the document is valid. This third and final section deals with making your well-formed XML document valid by using a DTD.
XML via the Document Object Model: A Preliminary Course by Aaron Weiss	While XML is a powerful, flexible, and intuitive way to structure data, it does not, by itself, process the data as such. One technology which can be employed to process XML data is the Document Object Model, a construct which provides programmatic access to the components of an XML document.
Introduction to SMIL by Jeff Rule	The Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language is a recommendation from the W3C that allows for the creation of time-based multimedia delivery over the web. Based on XML, it allows developers to mix many types of media, text, video, graphics, audio and vector based animation together and to synchronize them to a timeline.
RealPix: The SMIL Graphics Format by Jeff Rule	RealPix is the graphics format developed by Real Networks. It allows graphics to be streamed over web as part of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL). RealPix is one of the many media types that can be played back in the G2 Player from RealNetworks.
RealAudio: Using audio with SMIL by Jeff Rule	RealAudio is the classic streaming audio solution developed by Real Networks. In its latest incarnation, it not only allows audio to be streamed over web, it is part of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) and synchronized with other Real media types in the G2 Player from RealNetworks.