XML Display Language

[S Murder]

Hi. I know XSLT is used to transform XML into other XML types and Shemas and DTDs are used to describe the structure of XML documents, but is anyone familiar with any XML standards that are used to describe the way XML documents are displayed? For example, let's say I had an SVG document that references a file containing instructions on how to display it in the header, I could open it with a special XML viewer that would download the instructions and then be able to correctly display an SVG image according to standard. Is there anything like that in existence or in the works?

[boen_robot]

SVG itself describes appearances. And it describes them as XML => SVG is the XML standard you're looking for.If you want to get SVG out of your own XML format, you can use XSLT over the XML file that generates SVG. The generated SVG itself will vary depending on the instructions in the XML file.

[S Murder]

SVG itself describes appearances. And it describes them as XML => SVG is the XML standard you're looking for.If you want to get SVG out of your own XML format, you can use XSLT over the XML file that generates SVG. The generated SVG itself will vary depending on the instructions in the XML file.

Could SVG be used to describe/display other XML formats, such as XHTML, XUL, and MathML?

[boen_robot]

Could SVG be used to describe/display other XML formats, such as XHTML, XUL, and MathML?

If you generate it (the SVG) from the other format by the use of XSLT - yes.For example, you may have an XHTML file that describes the dimensions of all the firniture in a room and their placement. By using XSLT, you could take that data, and generate an SVG file that will be like a blueprint of the room. If you get a new firniture or move the old one, you'll only need to update the XHTML file. The SVG graphic could then update accordingly.At W3C, there's already an XSLT stylesheet that generates XHTML from MathML, made with the idea to support browsers with no MathML, but which have X(HT)ML support. You can use this stylesheet by using it from a browser with the xml-stylesheet processing instruction. Getting it to work in IE properly is a little tricky though, since you also need to generate HTML from the resulting XHTML due to the lack of true XHTML support in IE.