IBM Version 5 manual Cascading Style Sheet CSS

To make the XML data available to all kinds of browsers, we could transform the XML document on the server and send it as a more generic form of HTML to the browser. XSL transformations on the server will experience major growth as the specialized browser market expands. The would include browsers for Braille, aural browsers, Web printers, handheld devices and other kinds.

The W3C has published a working draft for a new set of requirements for XPath on February 2001. It has set of number of goals. It has stated that XML must:

￿Simplify manipulation of XML Schema-types content

￿Simplify manipulation of string-content

￿Support related XML standards

￿Improve ease of use

￿Improve interoperability

￿Improve i18n (International Language Support)

￿Maintain backward compatibility

￿Enable improved processor efficiency

For more information, visit W3C XSL Transformation (XSLT) Version 1 at:

http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#section-Introduction

W3C Xpath requirements Version 2.0 at:

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath20req

Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)

Cascading Style Sheets were designed to help separate presentation from data with HTML. In the early days, Netscape and Microsoft continued to customize their browsers, by adding new tags, to add functionality to the HTML. For developers, it became difficult to create Web sites where the content of the HTML pages was clearly separated from the presentation layout. To alleviate this problem, the W3C created Style Sheets. Style Sheets are usually saved in files external to HTML.

CSS allows the Web developer to define styles that apply:

￿To any given type of element (for example, all paragraphs)

￿To a class of elements (for example, all paragraphs which contain code samples)

￿To a particular element (for example, the third paragraph)

This is achieved by specifying classes and IDs in the HTML, and applying styles to them.

The benefits of CSS are well-understood: Web developers can easily change the layout and presentation of a whole site by editing a single stylesheet. CSS can be

22 The XML Files: Development of XML/XSL Applications Using WebSphere Studio