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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Old tired article against XSL-FO is based on untenable premise
 At 2002-07-31 00:29 -0400, Jimmy Cerra wrote: >BTW, a really good article arguing against use of XSL-FO: >http://people.opera.com/howcome/1999/foch.html . Unfortunately this article is brought up once again publicly as an argument against XSL-FO ... I personally didn't think then and still don't think now that this argument holds water or should ever be seriously considered. It is unfortunate that those who are considering publication technologies are presented with this article and get distracted from the success of the technology. The entire argument is leveraged on a premise that I don't think is tenable: that XSL-FO is going to be used as a storage format for documents on the web. The entire rant against XSL-FO is based on this premise, and successfully and correctly argues against it, so it reads as if it is a bona-fide argument, which is unfortunate. For the same reason that we who use XML to maintain our information successfully use HTML to present our information on web browsers, we can use XSL-FO to paginate our information into a printable form as PDF files or paper. When we store XML on the web and users want to look at the information in a web browser, they apply an XSLT stylesheet for HTML and CSS. How many users are happy with a "print the page" function from their web browser? Therefore when we store XML on the web and users want to print it, they can apply an XSLT stylesheet for XSL-FO. Of course if one stores a static XSL-FO instance on the web others will have as little use for that instance as a static HTML page ... how can that be argued against? XSL-FO brings vendor independence, platform independence and quality printing and pagination semantics to XML. I never use it as a web storage vocabulary, because as many of us have learned, binding our information into any final form (e.g. HTML, XSL-FO, etc.) is far too inflexible. I do use it to produce quality paginated output of my XML-authored training material that I sell from my web site. Prentice Hall uses it to take my training material to the commercial publishing marketplace. Commercial implementations are available for high-quality professional-looking output, and the stylesheets are interchangeable (thus if one vendor goes away the other vendor's tool can be used instead). Web sites can use it to produce on-demand paginated output. XSL-FO will help us meet the needs of an entire constituency of potential web users out there who cannot or don't want to navigate around a web page. They are used to the printed form and they want the printed form and not enough companies offering services on the web are delivering the printed form. I have tried to get my 85-y-o father-in-law to use the web more often but he cannot navigate a long printed web page, and he cannot grok the screen presentation! What about all those coming web services that are going to be producing "pages and pages" of results for their users ... will all those users want to see very long HTML pages? Won't some of your users want printed pages with headers, footers, page numbers, page number citations, etc.? Those navigation tools are necessary to get around long presentations of information in paginated form, and XSL-FO has the presentation semantics for such pagination navigation. You can produce XSL-FO from your XML at the point in time that information is to be rendered in a paginated form, using the stylesheet you need to present it in the way that you want. How is that different from producing HTML from your XML at the point in the that information is to be rendered in a browser, using the stylesheet you need to present it the way that you want? The article is old and tired. I hope my comments are considered useful. ........................ Ken -- Upcoming hands-on in-depth 3-days XSLT/XPath and/or 2-days XSL-FO: - North America: Sep 30-Oct 4,2002 - Japan: Oct 7-Oct 11,2002 G. Ken Holman mailto:gkholman@C... Crane Softwrights Ltd. http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/x/ Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0 +1(613)489-0999 (Fax:-0995) ISBN 0-13-065196-6 Definitive XSLT and XPath ISBN 1-894049-08-X Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath ISBN 1-894049-07-1 Practical Formatting Using XSLFO XSL/XML/DSSSL/SGML/OmniMark services, books (electronic, printed), articles, training (instructor-live,Internet-live,web/CD,licensed) Next public training: 2002-08-05,26,27,09-30,10-03,07,10 
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