Your Gateway to Rhododendrons in New England which is our chapter gateway adding extra structure to our 2 digital piles of text and images uses XML/XSLT/CSS.
These three in combination can be best thought of as content, containment, and decoration. The digital piles are content and the references to the content to be on a gateway page is in the form of XML, the XSLT determines the location of the content on the page by defining the content containers, and the CSS decorates the content and the containers on the page.
All 4 major browsers IE 6+ , Firefox 2+, Opera 9+ and, Safari 3+ all support XSLT on the browser. Much of the data placed on the web is in the form of XML. Both Google Blogger and Picasa Web Album which are being used to store text and images support external references to their content amd export XML that allows this content to be referenced.
This approach allows for a flexible approach to structuring and decorating the content stored in the Chapterts digital piles.
Client side processing of the XML has its downside in that such a site can never be as polished as can be done using a server side approach. However freedom from the server has it advantages. One big advantage is cost. The XML/XSLT/CSS approach using Microsoft Office Live Basic or Google Page Creator is free.
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Celebrating 10 Years on the Web
John and Sally Perkins
