Tracy R Reed wrote: >.. I'm not sure what variety of XML we will be using but > XHTML would be preferable because that is what our people know. I am > still trying to figure out what XSLT really is and its relationship to > CSS. Nobody here knows XSLT or even what it really is. Some googling > produces: > > http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/WhatIsXSL.html > > So XSL really has little to do with CSS. Based upon the requirements it > looks like this stuff won't work for us. We don't want our graphics > design people to have to learn XSLT. > > But if anyone else is interested in pursuing this for some reason I did > find a decent looking way of turning XSL-FO into PDF: > > http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/ > > So why is there CSS and XSL? Is it that CSS was invented for the web and > then they decided they really needed a general purpose standard to apply > to all XML documents not just XHTML?
The W3C has defined 2 stylesheet mechanisms. 1. css can be used with html (or even any-old xml) to specify browser rendering styles (including media other than screen, BTW -- such as print, or speech, ..). 2. xsl is for use by xsl-transformation programs (eg, xsltproc). Although it is called a stylesheet, it is really much more than that, and I'd rather think of it as a transformation recipe. I have read several css-fanatics state that XSL-FO is the wrong way to specify formatting. I gather the argument is that xslt code is difficult enough to understand as a data transformation process, that adding presentation goals adds unnecessary additional complexity. Certainly, if you want/need to *change* (/transform/) the content or structure, xslt is the all-powerful tool. ..but.. I agree that css has matured to a point where it is capable of _pretty-good-presentation_, and has the advantage that it's a fairly simple concept that can easily be mastered by (say) web page designers. In more words, XSLT is a programming language/operation, and probably will be difficult for non programmers to work with. So anything that may need to be an ongoing process should try to avoid XSLT if possible. Whereas, there are *LOTS* of people comfortable with html, a reasonable percentage of them capable of appreciating/applying good content design principles. And everyday there is more and more evidence that css is the accepted (and effective) way to control layout and presentation. ..jim -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
