Introduction to XML for Web Developers

Using simple, well-explained examples this tutorial walks you through XML and the sister XSL style sheet language.

Sol, Selena. WDVL (1999). Design>Web Design>XML>XSL

Introduction to XML for Web Developers

Surely, if you have decided to learn about XML, you are probably already quite familiar with the concepts behind HTML (HyperText Markup Language). So let's start from there.

Extropia. Design>Web Design>XML

Introduction to XML: Fixing the Web

What's wrong with the Web and how can the new XML technology fix it? This XML introduction is geared toward newcomers who have heard the buzz, but don't know what all the fuss is about. The article briefly surveys a number of new Web technologies such as XLL, XSL, RDF, DOM, MathML, SMIL, PGML, and how they relate to XML. Benefits of XML are stressed, as are potential applications in diverse fields. A reference section provides links to key XML resources, as well as to collections of other introductory articles.

Sall, Ken. Intranet Journal (2001). Design>Web Design>XML>Metadata

Migrating from HTML to XML

As the Internet world shifts its focus to XML and related technologies, what happens to HTML? Everywhere you go, products are becoming 'XMLitized' as vendors rush to gain market share. While this is great for companies that are only now beginning to build their infrastructures, what about the rest of us whose sites have existed for years, accumulating documents architected on old HTML technology? How are we to take our millions and millions of HTML documents and bring them into the next generation of Internet computing? Fortunately, the market for tools in this space is growing, and technologies like Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) are making it easier to migrate your repository of existing HTML documents.

Fischer, Peter. New Architect (2000). Design>Web Design>XML>XHTML

More About Custom DTDs  

Discusses the need for custom DTDs: why making a custom DTD for the sole purpose of validation is a mistake, and in which cases it does make sense to create and use one. For these cases, this article will also present techniques for creating clean custom DTDs and avoiding hacks.

W3C Quality Assurance Team. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design>Standards>XML

The Organized Web

This document discusses the evolution of the Internet from an unorganized collection of web pages to an organized collection of data. It outlines how XML is at the center of that transformation, and how organizations can take advantage of this evolution with the development of web based services.

Duffy, Scott. XGuru (2001). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>XML

Processing the Output Buffer with XSLT

This article shows an example of a technique mentioned in one of our recent articles. It uses the PHP output buffer in combination with XML as intermediate application layer. Ideally you should familiarize yourself with this concept first.

Opitz, Pascal. Content With Style (2005). Design>Web Design>XML>XSL

Programming Web Services with SOAP

The task of creating and deploying web services is really not all that difficult, nor is it all that different than what developers currently do in more traditional web applications. The tendency on all platforms is to automate more and more of the gory details and tedious work in creating web services. Most programmers don't need to know the exact details of encodings and envelopes; instead, they'll simply use a SOAP toolkit such as those described here.

Snell, James, Doug Tidwell and Pavel Kulchenko. O'Reilly and Associates (2001). Design>Web Design>Programming>XML

Rated XHTML

The W3C’s XHTML language is intended to bridge the web’s past (HTML) and future (XML). Shall we cross this bridge, now that we’ve come to it? Or is XHTML more trouble than it’s worth? Peter-Paul Koch puts forth the pros and cons.

Koch, Peter-Paul. List Apart, A (2000). Design>Web Design>XML>XHTML

RSS, Search Engine Visibility and Brand Perception

Branding has been called the most powerful idea in business, yet few companies consciously craft and promote their brand. Making a brand visible to an online audience can be an additional challenge. Studies show that searchers regard the companies that are placed on the first page of search engine results as the major players in the field. So how do you get the coveted page-one positioning? New technologies like RSS feeds are one way to accomplish this and make your brand more visible in the process.

Falkow, Sally. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Web Design>XML>Search Engine Optimization

Save Time and Code with XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0

Three interesting new features in XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0 are the item data type, the to operator, and the concept of sequences. Build a sample application that uses these features to generate a sophisticated HTML view of an XML document, and with the new features in XSLT 2.0, create shorter stylesheets that are easier to maintain. Along the way, spend a bit of time on data typing in XSLT 2.0, and learn to use the new element.

Tidwell, Doug. IBM (2007). Articles>Web Design>XML>XSL

Sharing Your Site with RSS

Jason shares his knowledge about RSS: What it is, how it's used, and why you need it. Just don't ask him what it stands for.

Cook, Jason. Webmonkey (2003). Design>Web Design>XML>RSS

Some Thoughts about SOAP versus REST on Security

REST is the underlying architecture of the World Wide Web and its two core specifications, URIs and HTTP. It has been proposed that instead of using new-from-scratch Web Services technologies we can get much more bang for our buck by understanding the full generality of what we've got. A community has arisen around this idea and we spend our time proving that what the Web already has is better than what is being developed. This page addresses the security weaknesses of the SOAP approach.

Prescod.net. Design>Web Design>Standards>XML

Styling XML: An Opinionated Guide  

McLaughlin evaluates the abilities of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and XSLT (eXstensible Style Language for Transformation) to render XML content in Internet browsers.

McLaughlin, Douglas J. Intercom (2001). Design>Web Design>XML

SVG: The New Flash

Macromedia has been the dominant force behind vector-based graphics and animation on the web for nearly the past 10 years. Times change, and new methods are always on the horizon. The upcoming contender for vector graphics is Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an XML-based language under development by the W3C.

Vitiello, Eric Jr. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Design>Web Design>XML>SVG

Take My Advice: Don't Learn XML

If you're a developer interested only in the data-oriented side of XML, and if you don't care about document authoring (writing books, articles, manuals, love poems, Web pages, whatever), feel free to ignore this article. If, on the other hand, document authoring is important to you (you're a technical writer, an HTML markup author, manager of a documentation group, an anonymous pamphleteer) and you're trying to decide whether it would be worthwhile for you to learn XML and use it for authoring documents, stick around. What you learn might save you a lot of time and spare you from some unnecessary frustration.

Smith, Michael. O'Reilly and Associates (2000). Design>Web Design>Writing>XML

A Technical Writer's Introduction to XML  

XML is one of the hot topics in Web technology. More and more XML sites are being developed every day. You've probably seen XML without realizing it. It's also showing up in specific tools for technical writers: Sun's JavaHelp uses XML components. But when you try to learn about this exciting new technology, when you review the many books that are appearing on shelves, or sites popping up on the Web, you'll find that the information that is available is mostly aimed at developers. This session cuts through the technical detail to the core of XML, to the value that it brings to technical writers and their users. Unlike HTML, which is based on a specific set of tags, XML allows you to define your own tags. This means you have the ability to tag information based on content rather than format structure.

Rockley, Ann and Steve Manning. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Web Design>XML

Text Alternatives to Inaccessible Web Pages

This document details an XML-based method of providing end-user control over the format of an online document, Web page or entire Web site. This functionality is useful in situations where users, due to preference or physical ability, require a way to personalize their view of the content. Content managers, editors, and developers are also able to work with one set of documents, eliminating the need for multiple files that contain the same information with different formatting, therefore reducing redundancy, version inconsistencies, and workload.

Bridge, Karl. Microsoft (2005). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>XML

Transformers: Using XSLT to Transform XML

XSLT, the Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation, can convert your XML data to HTML and other friendly formats. Introduce yourself to this snazzy technology.

Eisenberg, J. David. List Apart, A (2001). Articles>Web Design>XML

Translating XML Documents with xml:tm

Sooner or later someone will want to have your XML document translated into another language. In fact XML documents are much easier to translate than other electronic documents because they separate out form from content, and they conform to a rigorous standard and defined syntax. There are various approaches to improving the translation process.

Zydron, Andrzej. XML.com (2004). Design>Web Design>Localization>XML

Tutorial de XML en Castellano

En las siguientes páginas podéis acceder a un manual sobre XML y tecnologías asociadas totalmente en castellano.

Bravo Montero, Joaquin. Programacion.net (1999). (Spanish) Design>Web Design>XML

Understanding DOM

Even before there was XML, there was the Document Object Model, or DOM. It allows a developer to refer to, retrieve, and change items within an XML structure, and is essential to working with XML. In this tutorial, you will learn about the structure of a DOM document. You will also learn how to use Java technology to create a Document from an XML file, make changes to it, and retrieve the output.

Chase, Nicholas. IBM (2003). Design>Web Design>Information Design>XML

Up and Atom

Atom is really two different things, both related to syndication (blogs, newsfeeds, and other information which gets updated periodically). The Atom Syndication Format is an IETF standard for publishing entries (single topics or items) and feeds (collections of topics or items). The Atom Publication Protocol (sometimes called the Atom API or abbreviated APP) is a means for finding, listing, adding, editing, and removing content from an Atom repository. While Atom the Syndication Format has gone through the IETF process to become a standard, the standards committee is still at work on Atom the Publishing Protocol, although it seems likely that much of it has stabilized at this point.

Elza, Dethe and David Mertz. IBM (2006). Articles>Web Design>XML>RSS

Using SOAP with PHP

SOAP, the Simple Object Access Protocol, is the powerhouse of web services. It's a highly adaptable, object-oriented protocol that exists in over 80 implementations on every popular platform, including AppleScript, JavaScript, and Cocoa. It provides a flexible communication layer between applications, regardless of platform and location. As long as they both speak SOAP, a PHP-based web application can ask a C++ database application on another continent to look up the price of a book and have the answer right away.

Apple Inc. (2006). Design>Web Design>XML>SOAP

Using XML

XML is not just a pretty face, living in isolation from the rest of the computing world. XML is more than a rulebook for generating custom markup languages. It is part of a family of technologies, which, working together, make your XML-based documents very useful indeed.

Eisenberg, J. David. List Apart, A (2002). Design>Information Design>Web Design>XML