RE: [xml-dev] Common Word Processing Format

["Nathan Young -X \(natyoung - Artizen at Cisco\)" <natyoung@cisco.com>]

Hi. 

> > Being able to present a good looking and dummy proof 
> editing environment
> > for arbitrary XML formats would be really nice.
> 
> I don't claim it's a trivial problem, but there are vendors 
> who provide
> tools for that sort of thing.  I personally think XForms can 
> be the more
> standard answer, but it needs a little maturing yet.

Every tool I've used needs a LOT of maturing.  So much so that my
assertion is that no practical tool exists at this time.  I'm actively
evaluating solutions, and would love to be contradicted!
 
> > It's going to be a while (if ever) before I replace:
> > 
> > > > <ul class="navigation">
> > > >  <li><a href="home" class="home-link">home</a></li>
> > > >  <li><a href="next">next</a></li>
> > > >  <li><a href="previous">previous</a></li>
> > > > </ul>
> > 
> > With something like:
> > 
> > <navigation>
> >   <nav-item><a href="home" class="home-link">home</a></nav-item>
> >   <nav-item><a href="next">next</a></nav-item>
> >   <nav-item><a href="previous">previous</a></nav-item>
> > </navigation>
> > 
> > For delivery to the browser.  Is that what you are suggesting?
> 
> If the main purpose is delivery to a browser, then no, that's not what
> I'm suggesting.  I think a navigation bar for a Web page is a fine
> application for XHTML.

The point here is that plain XHTML isn't enough to do a nice job with
web delivery.  I need to layer some semantic and/or formatting
information on top in order to satisfy my requirements (and this is
common in front end code design).

A relatively new assertion is that there is value to be gained by
standardizing that extra semantic info and my understanding is that the
term "microformats" has been coined to describe that design pattern.

---->Nathan


> 
> 
> -- 
> Uche Ogbuji                               Fourthought, Inc.
> http://uche.ogbuji.net                    http://fourthought.com
> http://copia.ogbuji.net                   http://4Suite.org
> Articles: http://uche.ogbuji.net/tech/publications/
>