RE: [DUG-OFFTOPIC]: Expert advice on IE needed

[David McNeill]

Internally, IE uses the MSXML 3 parser to do the rendering.   MSXML4 parser is now available, and some of your IE 5.5 machines may or may not have it.   Even minor differences in how the client side parser implements various functions could mess up your XSLT.   Older versions like MSXML 2.5 had bigger differences as the spec was still not finalised.  Plenty of online docs about it.   Appologies if you already know all that.   Personally I don’t like rendering on the client side. XSLT is hard enough without getting a bunch of distributed machines doing the crunch work. Also, if you have a big XML fragment, and an XSLT that’s only going to use/display a small portion of the XML, you’re sending a lot of data to the client for nothing.   I render all my XSL on the server side using TurboPower (defunct) XML Partner Pro. It compiles totally inline with the Delphi exe.   Then I only end up sending HTML and CSS to the client.  There are other parsers, such as Xalan etc.   Another advantage of this is that it works in lots more browsers & platforms, and is not dependent on MS components, since you are only sending HTML to the client.  It’s also possible to debug the produced html on the server side.   The only time I could see you’d want to render on the client side is if you are doing data islands in XML (ie user data selection / provision without submit to server for each selection / view choice ) , or the client can see/access XML that the server can’t.   Microsoft are all keen on the enabling power of client side XML, but in my opinion the client compatibility just isn’t there yet.  And if you believed the entire Microsoft mantra, you wouldn’t be using Delphi would you?     David McNeill McPond eCommerce Software [EMAIL PROTECTED] Buchanan Road Franklin New Zealand Phone 09 292 7212   -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 13 August 2003 1:19 p.m. To: Multiple recipients of list offtopic Subject: [DUG-OFFTOPIC]: Expert advice on IE needed   Hi all   I have an asp page which takes an xml doc, transforms it with an xsl file and formats it with a css file, in order to produce an HTML page on the fly. It works fine on IE 6.0, but only on some IE 5.5 browsers.   ·         I've tried installing IE 5.5 SP2 but this didn't solve it and I've also found that some SP1 machines worked o.k., so the SP's don't seem to be the issue. ·         I've tried installing MSXML 3.0 and other xml type downloads, with no success. ·         I've tried installing any patches I can find, with no success.   This is very frustrating as IE 5.5 is used company wide and they aren't willing to move up to 6.0 just for my project.   I'm getting desperate and thinking about examining the hard drives in the IE area, between a PC that handles my web stuff and one that doesn't. Though I can't imagine this shedding much light.   Does anyone have any suggestions, no matter how off-the-wall? On the PCs that don't work, it displays 2 lines from the bottom of the web page, but misses all the tables and headings, etc.   Cheers Dave Jollie Developer, TOWER NZ IT (: 09 368 4259 Ê: 09 306 6801 *: [EMAIL PROTECTED] .: 46 Parnell Rd, Parnell, Auckland