Summary

[Previous] [Next]

For XML that does not contain elements that define the presentation of the XML documents, you can use CSS, XSL, or XSLT documents to transform the document. XSL provides a powerful tool to transform XML documents in virtually any way that is necessary. Currently XSL focuses on the transformation of XML into XHTML. It is likely that XSL will provide more powerful transformations in the future.

CSS, XSL, and XSLT allow us to transform XML into user services components that present XML data in a manner that would provide users with the information they require. Up to this point, the browser-based user services components we have built were not dynamic—that is, they did not allow the user to interact with the information being presented in the interface. If we want to allow users to input information, select the information they want to view, and interact with the interface, we need to add code to our user services components that will perform these functions and update the user interface. We'll discuss how to create the dynamic user services components in Chapter 13.