WAVO Article:
April 5, 1999 (Vol. 21, Issue 14)
XML tools to relieve Web pains
By Jeff Walsh
IBM and WavePhore are pushing the Extensible Markup Language
(XML) further down the path from innovation to implementation.
IBM recently posted the XML Enabler on its alphaWorks site
(alphaworks.ibm.com). XML Enabler is a servlet that converts
XML data to HTML by using the Extensible Stylesheet Language
(XSL). This would allow sites to store a single XML version of
each document, with the XML Enabler generating client-specific
versions on the fly.
WavePhore, at Internet World next week, will release the beta
version of WavePhore NewsPak, which uses XML as a data
format to deliver news feeds to Web sites. This should make it
easier for companies to integrate relevant news content into their
public sites and intranets.
IBM's XML Enabler takes HTTP requests that come into the Web
server, determines the client type, and selects the appropriate
XSL stylesheet for that client. The request is then passed off to the
Lotus XSL processor, which merges the stylesheet and XML data
and sends the completed page to the client.
IBM's use of XSL will benefit Microsoft, which supports XSL in
its Internet Explorer 5.0 browser. Microsoft was criticized online
recently by groups such as the Web Standards Project for pushing
the still-preliminary XSL standard vs. the more mature Cascading
Stylesheets (CSS). Although CSS is fully defined, Explorer 5.0
does not properly handle all of those requests, according to the
group.
IBM last week also introduced Xeena, a Java applet that creates a
palette of elements, which can be edited, based on a Document
Type Definition (DTD) file. Xeena aims to help users understand
DTD requirements.
The IBM XML Enabler and Xeena are both available on the
alphaWorks Web site.
WavePhore is standardizing previously disparate news feeds into
XML for delivery to news-oriented Web sites. NewsPak uses
Cogent, its coding agent, to pull specific information from the
articles for the document's meta data. This allows WavePhore to
categorize the news into 60 industry categories, and enables
WavePhore customers to more easily manage and publish
topic-specific news articles on their sites.
WavePhore will send two versions of the information: one geared
for online display, and one broken down into pieces to populate a
relational database.
The feeds will use two new XML schemas as part of
WavePhore's XMLNews initiative (www.xmlnews.org):
XMLNews-Story for news content, and XMLNews-Meta for meta
data.
The formats are backward-compatible with the existing News
Industry Text Format, currently used by every news-feed supplier.
Pricing for NewsPak has not been announced, although it will cost
more than getting the same feeds without XML categorization.
IBM Corp., in Armonk, N.Y., can be reached at www.ibm.com.
WavePhore Inc., in Phoenix, can be reached at
www.wavephore.com. |
