Server Side Extensible Markup

Server side XML is the professional alternative to proprietary command tag constructs for dynamic websites. Interaction generates standard HTML pages from XML documents and style sheets. As a result, your content can be authored as if all web browsers are XML and CSS savvy. No longer do you have to delay using modern markup and style sheets just because users and browsers are slow in catching up. Take advantage of extensible markup today while keeping your sites accessible for legacy HTML browsers.

XML is a vendor-independent open standard for markup of structured information. It has been designed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the same organization that maintains HTML, HTTP and other central web standards. With XML you can use your own custom tags, specialized document types and entities with dynamic or repeated content. Interaction committed to XML as early as in 1997. Even then Interaction had supported extensible markup for several years as what we labeled light-weight SGML.

Interaction allows conventional HTML to be used as extensible markup, facilitating a smooth migration of old documents to XML and Extensible HTML. Start by serving plain HTML through Interaction, then add XML features such as custom elements and entity references at your own pace.

Better Markup With Custom Tags

Unlike HTML, XML doesn't define a number of tags. Instead, XML allows the author to use custom tags to better describe the semantics and structure of the content. For example, an author can choose to use a custom ABSTRACT tag to mark the summary of a document:

Marking up content with custom tags has many advantages:

• Flexible presentation. The look & feel of the site can be changed without revising the documents, by changing the design in a style sheet. This gives the flexibility to experiment with alternative site presentations.
• Efficient website maintenance.Style sheets make it a snap to upgrade the look & feel of the whole site without modifying any markup or content.
• Reusable content.The information can be reused by software from different vendors. Investment in content formatting doesn't have to go to waste as technology advances.
• Achieve consistency. Specialized document types ensures that the authors use proper markup. The design of the presentation style can be left to a layout professional, allowing authors to focus on content creation rather than markup tweaking.

Style Sheet Support for XML

The presentation of custom elements is designed in a style sheet. The Display property of CSS specifies whether an element should be shown Inline (mixed with other text), as a Block (in its own area like a paragraph) or as a List. For example, say that a website has a custom element ABSTRACT used to markup the summary of each page. The webmaster can declare that abstracts should be presented as a separate paragraph by setting the Display property to Block in Interaction's style sheet editor:

Interaction allows a style sheet to indicate which HTML tag to use as basis for a custom element. Interaction will do its best to make the custom element inherit the presentation of the HTML tag specified in the Basis property. For example, the style sheet above suggests that the presentation of abstracts should be based on the formatting of a Blockquote. The Basis property allows Interaction to provide backwards compatibility all the way to the first generation of web browsers.

A CSS style sheet can specify fonts, colors and other details about how the browser should present a custom element. The optional component for Interaction can emulate the design in a style sheet using presentational HTML tags, providing a similar look & feel also for browsers that don't support CSS.

Thanks to Interaction, the presence of older browsers is no longer a reason for not taking advantage of XML and CSS.