XLink - where are we? [tiny amount of frustration]

[Ralph Ferris]

At 02:14 AM 11/11/98, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

>(a) it [HyBrick] appears to be primarily an SGML tool rather than an XML >
one. The
>DTDs shipped with the distribution all have minimisation controls (or
>whatever the "- o" is called). When I try to run any of my XML files it
>throws errors on the files.

HyBrick runs on SP and Jade, which support "full" SGML. To work within the
syntax defined by the XML spec., the SGML declaration for XML has to be
called. At the moment, this has to be done explicitly. If you look in the
XML-sample directory, you'll see that the catalog file contains the entry:
 
SGMLDECL "..\dtd\xml.dcl"
 
In a future release, this will be done "automatically" when the XML
processing instruction is encountered.

>
>(b) the XML files appear to reference these SGML (non-XML) DTDs so although
>it may be valid SGML it doesn't seem to be valid XML. I suspect it may need
>a catalog since one is shipped with it.

See previous comment.

>
>(c) it appears to require all applications to have a stylesheet - i.e.
>there is no default display and it's therefore primarily for rendering XML
>as text with hyperlinks.

Yes - a DSSSL style sheet must be provided.

>
>(d) the license restricts use to evaluation only which means it is not
>really usable for experimentation - especially without an API, etc. For
>example, I cannot demonstrate it to students.

I'm not sure what you mean here. You're right that it's a binary
distribution, which does not expose an API for developers. I would think
though that what you would be trying to demonstrate to students would be
functionality, and you can certainly do that.


Best regards,

Ralph E. Ferris
Fujitsu Software Corporation

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