XML based site - how to create?

Question

I would like to create an XML based website. I want to use XML files as data sources, as this is a kind of online catalog site. Can someone please give me a starting point? Are there any good online resources that I can link to? I really like ASP and JavaScript.

Answer 1

If you cannot or do not want to store your data in XHTML format, then XSLT is definitely what you want. By its very definition, it is a conversion language designed to convert data from one format to another. Since this is a trick, it provides power, speed and flexibility that you will not find in many other solutions. It will also ensure compliance with the HTML (X) standards standard, as it cannot be done otherwise (well, not without deliberately going out of your way to run it).

MSXML allows you to convert XSL for use in classic ASP - see this page for an example.

ZVON.org is also an excellent XSLT link.

Answer 2

Hey, here's the idea - xhtml is xml, after all, so if you can define the xml file format, just create an xhtml browser to get you started.

Otherwise, I'm sure there are XML parsing libraries for ASP, and you can look in XSLT (which is cool to learn, but a little more complicated).

Answer 3

w3schools has very good information about XSLT .

Answer 4

I worked with an XML / XSLT-based template system and knew others who have one, and my advice is not to do this . You will use XSLT as a programming language for presentation logic, and it will be a headache for development and support.

You can use XML as data sources, but use deserialization or XQuery / XPath to extract the data and use it in an easy-to-use template system - even ASP pages are fine.

Answer 5

I would use PHP with the built-in SimpleXML function, although I'm sure there is similar functionality with ASP.

Alternatively, you can use XSLT to transform the XML for display - it depends on what the XML is and whether you create it or just use it.

Answer 6

jQuery, AJAX and PHP are your friends - for static content, several nested loops in PHP can easily push XML into XHTML (unfortunately, to the person who indicated that well-formed xhtml is xml), and with jQuery you can use AJAX in additional content.

Did I also mention that they are all free?

Answer 7

(I would recommend using a traditional database instead.)

In ASP, you can use the MSXML component to parse and modify XML files. More information on the MSXML component can be found on MSDN .

Basically, what you would like to do is read the XML file and do some filtering on the server side and output it to the client.

Perhaps something like this will help you get started: XML:

<data> <item visible="no"> <title>Invisible item 1</title> </item> <item visible="yes"> <title>Visible item 1</title> </item> <item visible="yes"> <title>Visible item 2</title> </item> </data> 

And some ASP:

 Dim oXMLDoc Dim oNode Set oXMLDoc = CreateObject("MSXML.DOMDocument") oXMLDoc.Load Server.MapPath("../_private/data.xml") Set oNode = oXMLDoc.SelectSingleNode("data/item") Do Until oNode Is Nothing If oNode.GetNamedAttribute("visible") = "yes" Then Response.Write "Title: " & oNode.SelectSingleNode("title").Text & "<br />" & vbCrLf End If Set oNode = oNode.nextSibling Loop 

Answer 8

Take a look at the current, http://tox.sourceforge.net/ . It is intended to be used with Oracle, but instead, you can use the include function to extract the XML files. Like most of the other answers, when using tox you will need to apply the view to your XML through XSLT. There are a few simple examples included in the loading of toxins.

Answer 9

Web Content Management Made Simple with XML.

SoftXMLCMS is a unique content management system for managing XML data. A lightweight graphical interface allows you to manage profiling data to create hierarchical structures.

SoftXMLCMS is an ideal web-based tool for creating complex multi-page websites in different languages. The main advantage of SoftXMLCMS is that there is no need for a database that significantly reduces the cost of creating a professional website.

The application installation process is very simple and does not require special technical skills.

Compatible with the most important browsers available on the market: IE 5.5+, Firefox 1.0+, Mozilla 1.3+, Netscape 7+, Chrome and only the ASP JPEG component is required.

SoftXMLCMS includes a powerful text editor for editing rich HTML documents and images in CMS. The text editor interface makes it easy to create content for business users who don't know anything about HTML and want to save it that way.

SoftXMLCMS includes a ready-made site template for displaying CMS content. All this will give you a set of tools to create a professional website in the shortest possible time and in a cost-effective way.

SoftXMLCMS requires IIS and support for Microsoft ASP technology and the ASP JPEG component.