Hi Brad. This sound pretty interesting. It seems from what I have been
reading, there is no doubt that xslt will play big in future of zope
and rendering content for users. It is probably more of a matter of
where it is going to happen. I think the wave will be to use zope a bit
differently in the sense that you use zope for content management and
you move content thru adapters and interfaces to a publishing process -
an that the site is served by apache through mod_python.
In zope3, there will be all kinds of ways to adapt content in whatever
flavor you want through adapters. So when you publish your site,
perhaps this is most likely the xslt will happen so that through apache
you are looking only at the rendered result leaving so fuss, no muss
for client side applications.
I was also watching BitFlux with PHP when I was doing things in PHP.
But now it is python all the way and I believe zope has a wonderful
future with the potential of the zope3 architecture.
Regards,
David
On Thursday, July 21, 2005, at 11:18 AM, Brad Clements wrote:
About 3 years ago I posted on this list asking if anyone else was
interested in using TAL/METAL to produce XSLT stylesheets that could
then be further processed.
The folks over at Bitflux have toyed with this a bit:
http://wiki.bitflux.org/Templates_TAL
I've been playing with their TAL processing stylesheet (which they seem
to have stopped working on)
http://svn.bitflux.ch/repos/public/popoon/trunk/components/
transformers/xsltal/tal2xslt.xsl
And have started adding fill-slot/define-slot support to it.
Also, trying to setup some unit tests.
--
All my Zope websites these days are more data driven then content
driven.
Each page "class" is a python script that returns an "XML context blob"
with a stylesheet PI. That stylesheet then generates the HTML (usually
on the client browser, but on the server if necessary).
By page "class", I mean that many URI's are handled by a single
pythonscript via traverse_subpath handling, and each script handles a
specific class of "page types".
The xslt stylesheets themselves also have xsl:include statements that
work, sorta like metal macros.
With further use of the document() function in the xslt stylesheets,
99% of
browsers can cache individual page fragments in the client's browser.
This approaches the ultimate goal of the ESI (Edge Side Includes)
specification.
http://www.esi.org/index.html
Throw into that mix AJAX-style interfaces (sorry for buzzword use), and
the usefulness of XML-backed Zope sites increases dramatically.
Suddenly my RESTful data sources can be exposed, either by
compositing into the html page directly during HTML generation via the
document() function.. Or dynamically via XML-HTTP requests, or both!
Also, where appropriate, my data sources can render their output as XML
or javascript literal or javascript arrays (though the later is
client-side
javascript specific). Mozilla's transformix engine isn't very fast,
so for
google-suggest style interfaces sending over javascript arrays is
better
than sending XML.
Though in a pinch, I also have used an XSLT file to convert XML back
into javascript literal format on the client. This works until E4X is
implemented in client browsers:
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-357.htm
--
For my clients, using XML/XSLT as the basis for web-site architecture
has dramatically simplified my site designs, while simultaneously
increasing the flexability in interface creation through the
composition of
data sources and templates (xslt).
Additionally, offline back-end processing via XSL-FO is now possible
with
hardly any additional effort.
--
But back to ZPT and XSLT.
In ZPT, the TALES context space serves as the root of the data source
tree that is used to expand TAL elements.
ZPT sheets can be tested in-situ as they are being edited by clicking
on
the test tab.
For TAL/XSLT, the context space comes from the "XML context blob"
(with the launch point stylesheet PI).
TAL to XSLT requires a pre-processing step, where the tal document is
converted to xslt. Perhaps this will be a three-step process if we
want to
make METAL expansion a distinct phase (to ease previewing and editing
of the TAL page).
This makes working with TAL/XSLT at least a three-step process.
1. Metal expansion
2. TAL to XSLT
3. Final rendering of "XML context blob" to XHTML (or whatever). This
step usually occurs on the client browser.
Different XML context blobs can use the same XSLT stylesheet. So in
some respects this is somewhat similar to Zope acquisition, where the
"data context" can be applied to a "template context" through the
arrangement of the requesting URL.
--
So, is anyone interested in TAL to XSLT?
I guess I should have blogged about this instead.. Can't remember where
I left my blog...
--
Brad Clements, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (315)268-1000
http://www.murkworks.com
AOL-IM or SKYPE: BKClements
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