RE: [xml-dev] "Introducing MicroXML, Part 1: Explore the basicprinciples

["Rushforth, Peter" <Peter.Rushforth@NRCan-RNCan.gc.ca>]

David,

> On 25/06/2012 16:10, Rushforth, Peter wrote:
> >>
> >> Why _would_ you expect them to be underlined if the xml is 
> not being 
> >> rendered? I certainly would not. If you send unknown xml 
> to a browser 
> >> it is not styled _at all_ Why would you expect links to 
> work as links 
> >> if headings are not working as headings and paragraphs are not 
> >> working as paragraphs?
> >
> > The XML is being rendered.  It displays as nice syntax coloured, 
> > indented XML.
> 
> Unknown XML gets pushed through a default XSL stylesheet that 
> shows the _markup_ as such you would not expect links to act 
> as links. This is a "view source" kind of application. You 
> should only expect the links to act as links if the markup is 
> being interpreted not if the _markup_ is being displayed.

OK I think I had guessed that at some time in the past, but forgotten it.
What I would wish for is that the browser interpret the markup then, and
find the links, rel, type, method etc so that it can act as a 
go-between my javascript (which it would have to load because it
had recognized the @rel="script" @type="application/javascript" part of
my affordance, as well as possibly others.  Because the browser is
charged with the protocol (content negotiation, for example.  method
selection, for another).  So code-on-demand would work not only for
HTML, but also more powerfully, for anything XML.

Now, substitute XSLT 2 for javascript, and we are cooking with hypermedia gas.

> 
> > Regardless of what the elements are, what namespace they're 
> in, what 
> > encoding the document is in.  OK, I don't *know* all these 
> things to 
> > be true, because I have not written any browser code, but I've 
> > witnessed it.  And so far my experience holds for 
> application/xml, but 
> > not for any +xml media type.  So those browser guys can 
> only be pushed 
> > so far, apparently.
> >
> >
> >> If you associate a stylesheet with the xml via xml-stylesheet or 
> >> another means then you can make paragraphs be rendered as 
> paragraphs 
> >> and make links be underlined. (If you use css rather than 
> xsl I think 
> >> you still can't make the links be links but that's an 
> issue for css)
> 
> 
> >
> > No, I don't think it is a CSS issue.  It is the fact that the links 
> > aren't recognized by the browser parser.  I think!.
> 
> It isn't a browser parser it's a browser supplied XSLT (at 
> least it is in IE (which did this first) and Firefox. So 
> actually it could show anything (since the output if an XSLT 
> stylesheet needn't be particularly related to its input).
> 
> In firefox you can see the default stylesheet by following
> 
> chrome://global/content/xml/XMLPrettyPrint.xsl
> 
> I would guess you could get it to use a different default 
> styling if you wish.

OK thanks for reminding me and helping me back on to that learning curve.
I still stand by my comments above though.

Peter