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Thanks Michael, I think I catch your point. In the company I'm working for we have an internal tool to generate interfaces in TCL/Tk from a GUI description in a non-XML text file. Someone proposed to describe the GUI using an XML "vocabulary". We did something like that and it works (although with some constrains). We just defined the vocabulary and create an XSLT transformation to generate the ASCII files required by our tool. No magic solution (far from it). The effort was already done in the development of the TCL/Tk generation tool. XML was supposed to simplify GUI description, but unfortunately it is very similar to its non-XML counterpart. Needless to say that the use of graphical tools (in our case, XML Spy) to generate schemas would simplify the process, avoiding the "manual" definition of the GUI in the XML vocabulary. The generation of GUI layout does not seem to be the real problem. For instance, if your schema describes a uniform set of elements (say Book) each one consisting of simpleType elements (say Title, Subject, Author, NumPages), you could create a table with one row per Book, and input boxes in each cell for the Title, Subject, etc. A detailed discussion on this may be out of the scope of this list, but I reckon that for some "simple" structured data it should not be very complicated to generate the graphical layout of the interface. For me, the real challenge is to manage input data and produce the output files (which do not necessarily have to be XML files). But generating a dummy (non-functional) GUI should be quite easy starting from the XML Schema document. Actually, if we are about to simplify things, we could even start from an XML instance document, which might be the simplest approach. Maybe I am being very optimistic (I hope not! I committed to do this some months ago!), so any feedback will be highly appreciated. Again, thanks a lot for your response. Regards, Angel PS: I will take the opportunity to thank you for your excellent books on XSLT/XPath. Congratulations! They are brilliant and very instructive! > -----Original Message----- > From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: 19 July 2005 16:34 > To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: RE: Generating User Interfaces from Schema > > > As mentioned in another thread, there is a lot of processing to get from a > schema document (a chunk of XML) to a schema (a set of components with > properties). You probably want to start from the schema, not from > the schema > document. > > There seems to be a need for a tool here that generates an XML > representation of the schema, perhaps as a schema document in some kind of > "normal form" with appinfo annotations to represent the computed > properties. > Having written a schema processor in Java, I find it hard to > imagine writing > one in XSLT, though I'm sure it can be done in theory. > > Michael Kay > http://www.saxonica.com/ > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Angel Gavin [mailto:agavin@xxxxxx] > > Sent: 19 July 2005 10:09 > > To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > Subject: Generating User Interfaces from Schema > > > > Hi all, > > > > I have read a lot about the suitability of XSLT to generate > > Graphical User > > Interfaces (GUI) from XML Schema. I suppose that many people has been > > working on this before, but I just want to get some feedback > > from the list. > > Are there any related project/initiatives/products/... to > > generate GUIs in > > an automated way? I only know one commercial product > > (JAXFront) and, as far > > as I know, it is not based on XSLT. > > > > At the time being I can foresee some restrictions (not > > necessarily linked to > > the use of XSLT, but to automation itself) I may need to > > impose to Schemas. > > Any hints on this will be much appreciated too. > > > > Thanks a lot in advance for your help, > > Angel > > > > > > ______________________ > > Este mensaje, y en su caso, cualquier fichero anexo al mismo, > > puede contener informacion clasificada por su emisor como > > confidencial > > en el marco de su Sistema de Gestion de Seguridad de la > > Informacion siendo para uso exclusivo del destinatario, quedando > > prohibida su divulgacion copia o distribucion a terceros sin la > > autorizacion expresa del remitente. Si Vd. ha recibido este mensaje > > erroneamente, se ruega lo notifique al remitente y proceda a > > su borrado. > > Gracias por su colaboracion. > > ______________________ > > This message including any attachments may contain confidential > > information, according to our Information Security Management System, > > and intended solely for a specific individual to whom they > > are addressed. > > Any unauthorised copy, disclosure or distribution of this message > > is strictly forbidden. If you have received this > > transmission in error, > > please notify the sender immediately and delete it. > > ______________________ > ______________________ Este mensaje, y en su caso, cualquier fichero anexo al mismo, puede contener informacion clasificada por su emisor como confidencial en el marco de su Sistema de Gestion de Seguridad de la Informacion siendo para uso exclusivo del destinatario, quedando prohibida su divulgacion copia o distribucion a terceros sin la autorizacion expresa del remitente. Si Vd. ha recibido este mensaje erroneamente, se ruega lo notifique al remitente y proceda a su borrado. Gracias por su colaboracion. ______________________ This message including any attachments may contain confidential information, according to our Information Security Management System, and intended solely for a specific individual to whom they are addressed. Any unauthorised copy, disclosure or distribution of this message is strictly forbidden. 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