Doing It With XML, Part 2
July 19, 1999
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In my earlier
XML articles,
we've explored how XML is ideal for
representing structured data,
we've examined the role of XML in the
big picture
of the W3C standardization efforts, we've identified a number of
XML software products, and
we've seen how XML and Java
make a "perfect pair".
In
Doing It
With XML, Part 1,
we took an XML document instance and generated a DTD,
discussed the relative merits of using elements vs. attributes,
saw how to associate the DTD with the XML document,
learned how to view XML with Internet explorer 5
(with or without the DTD),
considered several validation issues, and also took the W3C browser
Amaya for a quick spin.
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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.
Recommended Background Reading
Depending upon the extent of your XML background, you may find
it useful to read the following articles and tutorials before
reading the current article.
Important Usage Notes
You will need to use
Internet Explorer 5.0 (released March 18, 1999) or later to
view some of the examples.1
We'll be sure to point out what platform and browser is required
in each section of this article.
Most of the other tools used
require Java external to your browser, either as the
JDK (Java Development Kit) or the JRE (Java Runtime Environment),
both of which are available from
this JavaSoft Products page.
We'll point out where JDK or JRE are required as well. Some of
the XML editors require downloading a demo from a product page.
Keep in mind that the name of this article is "Doing it With
XML". It is designed to be interactive. So please don't
simply read or skim the article. You'll learn a great deal more
by trying out each of the things that are suggested, even if it
means downloading and installing IE5 plus the XML editors.
(Plan to spend about 2 hours more than your normal reading time
for these extra-curricular activities.) We recommend that you
download our
examples in doingit2.zip
so you can experiment on your own.
However, there are ample screenshot links in the tables on
the following pages that will give you a good idea of how things
look in the various editors
and browsers.
1
Before you conclude that WDVL has gone MSIE-happy,
you might want to read the viewpoint of the
Web Standards Project (WaSP) which
accompanied the March 18, 1999 release of IE5, saying that the
browser falls short on standards suppport.
There's also an
article on CNET
that covers a similar viewpoint.
IE users are sure to be interested in
XML Support in IE 5,
the first part of a multi-part article written by XML spec
co-editor Tim Bray.
Editing it the Cheap Way: JUMBO
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