During the First week of Lecture CMT3315 we were given questions to research in the history of XML, XSL and CSS answers are below. For the duration of the lecture we talked about what is XML what it is about, etc we also talked XSL, CSS and the course duration which 24 weeks plus deadlines and more. After about an hour we finalised the history of XML XSL and CSS.
1. What was the first Browser to read XML????
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 was the first browser to support XML. To accomplish this, IE4 uses the external MSXML parser that can break a document's XML tags into an object tree. Values contained in structured tag sets are exposed as objects that can be manipulated within the browser by JavaScript. The next generation of browsers, however, will natively recognize and parse XML documents.
2. What is the current status of CSS?
CSS is the language for describing the presentation of Web pages, including colors, layout, and fonts. It allows to adapt the presentation to different types of devices, such as large screens, small screens, or printers. CSS is independent of HTML and can be used with any XML-based markup language. The separation of HTML from CSS makes it easier to maintain sites, share style sheets across pages, and tailor pages to different environments. The current status of CSS is at level 3.0, also known as CSS3, and there has been 4.0 releases proceeding to this version which are the version 1.0, version 2.0, and version 2.1. below are the CSS work current and upcoming specification.
• Ruby – CR • Media Queries - CR• Color – CR • User Interface – CR • TV Profile – CR • Selectors – LC • Fonts – LC • Pages Media – LC • Print Profile – LC • Web Fonts - LC
3. What is the current status of XSL?
XSL allows the author to apply formatting operations to XML elements. XSL is a language in which the author can indicate that the 'footer' element should be displayed as a paragraph, in blue and in italic using Arial. XSL is not the only way to display XML data. However, it provides you with a simple declarative solution. Also, because XSL syntax is XML itself, you don't have to learn a whole new syntax to begin writing XSL stylesheets.The current state release of XSL was the version 2.0, whereas X- Query version is 1.0 and X- Path version is also 2.0.
XSL allows the author to apply formatting operations to XML elements. XSL is a language in which the author can indicate that the 'footer' element should be displayed as a paragraph, in blue and in italic using Arial. XSL is not the only way to display XML data. However, it provides you with a simple declarative solution. Also, because XSL syntax is XML itself, you don't have to learn a whole new syntax to begin writing XSL stylesheets.The current state release of XSL was the version 2.0, whereas X- Query version is 1.0 and X- Path version is also 2.0.
4. What are the relative merits of CSS and XSL?
The uses of style sheet languages have opened new possibilities and opportunities for web designers in terms of freedom in designing and maintainability of web sites. Currently, there are two kinds of style sheet languages used by many web designers today. These are cascading style sheet CSS and extensible style sheet language (XSL). While they are both called style sheet languages, they have very different purposes and ways of going about their tasks.
Advantages of CSS
CSS express how to display (Inline style) HTML elements
The HTML documents can be displayed using different output styles. HTML tags were originally designed to define the content of a document. Cascading Styles sheets define how HTML elements are to be displayed. Style sheets bring genuine leading and sophisticated margination to the web designing.
CSS allows for smaller file sizes
Cascading Style Sheets save bandwidth, diminish the overall amount of code in web pages and vastly reduces the size of your files when compared to old-style markup.
External Style Sheets can save you a lot of work
CSS can save you a lot of work when designing a website. Most modern browsers now support CSS so it's safe and easy to use.
External Style Sheets are stored in CSS files
CSS allows external style sheet to control the layout and web design of the whole site. The best way is generally to use an external CSS file; it controls many different elements throughout the entire site instead of defining the same elements again and again in all of the HTML files. Web Designing is normally stored in Style Sheets
Web design for the entire web is a thoughtful appearance for design issues and how they differ from designing for the web page through CSS. Smaller Web site web designing companies are now able to make web design accessible to both smaller companies and individuals further mounting the growth of the web development. CSS allows web design authors to move much of that information to a separate style sheet resulting in significantly simpler HTML language.
CSS allows you greater control of page structure
The main ability of CSS is to control the page structure without needing to use presentational markup. Using CSS you can hide content from certain browsers in certain situations and multiple style definitions will cascade into one. It explains to create two and three column float based layouts and horizontally center a design on a page.
Cascade Style sheets also offer much more flexibility in terms of the presentation effects it provides. Such as margin, color, border, background and much more. CSS develop strategies for maximizing forward and backwards browser compatibility. There are plenty of exposure of web design and testing tools that can aid in the creation of attractive, standards-abiding documents.
Advantage Over CSS
The combination of XSLT and XSL-FO creates a powerful styling language, though much more complex than CSS.
XSLT is a Turing complete language, while CSS is not; this demonstrates a degree of power and flexibility not found in CSS.
XSLT is capable of creating content, such as automatically creating a table of contents just from chapters in a book, or removing/selecting content, such as only generating a glossary from a book.
XSLT version 1.0 with the EXSLT extensions, or XSLT version 2.0 is capable of generating multiple documents as well, such as dividing the chapters in a book into their own individual pages. By contrast, a CSS can only selectively remove content by not displaying it.
XSL-FO is unlike CSS in that the XSL-FO document stands alone. CSS modifies a document that attached to it, while the XSL-FO document contains all of the content to be presented in a purely presentational format.
For richly specified paged media, such complexity is ultimately required in order to be able to solve various typesetting problems which is where XSL-FO is used.
Disadvantage of XSL
The complexity of XSL-FO is a problem, largely because implementing an FO processor is very difficult.
CSS implementations in web browsers are still not entirely compatible with one another, and it is much simpler than writing an FO processor.
5. What are the implications of the concept of the document tree ?
The document tree – it’s a family thing
All HTML documents are trees. Each level of the tree is described in the same manner as a human family tree, with ancestors, descendants, parents, children and siblings. CSS rules are based on the document tree. If you understand the document tree concept, then CSS selectors will be easy to understand and apply.
Let’s start with a sample of HTML. This sample doesn’t include the head or title, as we are focussing on what is inside the body:
<body> <div id="content"> <h1>Heading here</h1> <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</p> <p>Lorem ipsum dolor <em>sit</em> amet.</p> <hr> </div> <div id="nav"> <ul> <li>item 1</li> <li>item 2</li> <li>item 3</li> </ul> </div></body>The document tree diagram for the sample above would be:
Ancestor
An ancestor refers to any element that is connected but further up the document tree – no matter how many levels higher. In the diagram below, the <body> element is the ancestor of all other elements on the page.
Descendant
A descendant refers to any element that is connected but lower down the document tree – no matter how many levels lower. In the diagram below, all elements that are connected below the <div> element are descendants of that <div>.
Parent
A parent is an element that is directly above and connected to an element in the document tree. In the diagram below, the <div> is a parent to the <ul>.
Child
A child is an element that is directly below and connected to an element in the document tree. In the diagram above, the <ul> is a child to the <div>.
Sibling
A sibling is an element that shares the same parent with another element. In the diagram below, the <li>’s are siblings as they all share the same parent – the <ul>.
Links for more detailed information can be found on this website http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/workshop/
