Anne Honkaranta, inSGML project, 2000-2001
The purpose of this demonstration is to explore document transformation techniques (XSLT and via DOM interface) and document processing in Microsoft Internet Information Server 5.0/ASP 3.0 and Internet Explorer 5.0-6.0 - environments. For exploration purposes, we have defined an imaginary company called Poem Publishers, Inc. In the demonstration we study the document processing needs encountered in the simple electronic document preparation and publishing process of Poem Publishers, Inc. Another objective for the demonstration is to test Microsoft XML/XSLT tools available in order to get experiences of their use and usefullness for document processing and problems that a new-comer might encounter when starting to use these tools for XML document preparation and publication in WWW.
Another objective for this demonstration is to illustrate document transformation tecniques and transformation needs in document preparation and publishing. Since the Poem Publishers, Inc. produces poems the test documents are relatively small and have quite simple content structure (information schema). This makes poems easy to be used for demonstrating the transformations since the total cotent of a poem can be seen on one screen and the content structure of poems is easy to illustrate and comprehend. The transformations needed could also be coded quite promptly even though multiple (XPath) functions and their use were tested.
By studying the demonstration one can grasp ideas considering the multi-purpose use of structured (i.e. SGML and XML) documents for producing output for separate audiences and different end-user devices. When studying the example codes and functionality one can consider how the document content stucture affects the possibilities to reuse available document parts for producing new combinations of content.
What the demonstration fails to illustrate is a power of structured documents for automating the preparation and publishing process of structured documents and thus making the process easier to manage and more efficient. This is because in Poem Publishers, Inc. there are only few short poems. These could be managed more efficiently manually. However, the situation changes completely when the documents are large and/or have complex content structures like commonly in, for example technical, legal or healthcare documentations. Also, if the documents need to be delivered in multiple publishing formats, for different audiences or end-user devices, or there are masses and masses of documents to be dealt with one can gain great benefits and hinder the possibilities of mistakes that occur in manual work by using structured documents as a principal format for documents.
The principles illustrated in this demonstration were presented in the inSGML project seminar on February 2001. The version presented here is a documented and slightly improved version of what was presented. The demonstration can be used for bringing back to mind the ideas demonstrated in a seminar and also for studying the ideas and XML/XSLT tools further. However, this documentation nor the demonstration/codes are not so well documented and double-checked for errors that one might use them for studying the XML or XSLT as a whole. In other words, the demonstration is complementary to the seminar presentation and has not been prepared as an independent learning material. There might be slight errors on the codes and on text. We apologize this, and take no responsibility whatever if one chooses to use these models in their own production environment. This demonstration is not a "polished end-product" of our project.
When building up the demonstration following languages, software and script tools were used:
The example codes and functions are being presented on the "menu" window on left hand pane. You can use example docs and transformations except for the limitations given by copyright licences and rules, which you can check out from my copywright notes.
Demostration documentation parts are as follows:
Updated 20.11.2001 by AHo