Weekly XML News Archives - September 1998
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This page collects recent
XML developments from many
different sources. It is updated monthly.
Contributions
of newsworthy items will be considered.
Older news items are also archived.
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Week Ending September 24, 1999
XML Schema Working Drafts Updated
On Sept. 24, 1999, W3C released new Working Drafts of
XML Schema Part 1: Structures and
XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes.
The XML Schema effort is aimed at replacing DTDs with a better data modeling
language that supports subclassing, pre-defined datatypes, and user-defined datatypes.
Ron Bourette has released
XML-DBMS 1.0, a
parser and database independent Java package which uses DOM, SAX, and JDBC.
"XML-DBMS is a set of Java packages for transferring data between XML
documents and relational databases. It views the XML document as a tree
of objects in which element types are generally viewed as classes and
attributes and PCDATA as properties of those classes. It then uses an
object-relational mapping to map these objects to the database. An
XML-based mapping language is used to define the view and map it to the
database."
Bourette has also released
Schema Converters 1.0,
a Java package that models a DTD as Java objects, and converts to and from
those objects from DTDs and XML schema languages.
Currently, the only schema language supported is DDML.
The Level 2 Document Object Model Working Draft
is nearly complete;
last call ends on October 8, 1999.
"The DOM Level 2 is made of a set of core interfaces to create
and manipulate the structure and contents of a document and a set of optional
modules. These modules contain specialized interfaces dedicated to XML, HTML, an
abstract view, generic stylesheets, Cascading Style Sheets, Events,
traversing the document structure, and a Range object."
XML and Java author Elliotte Rusty Harold posted his
slides
from a Sept. 22, 1999 talk to JAOO
which describes the 10 promises of XML.
Harold then grades each of the goals based on its current status.
The final grade? B and Rising.
On Sept. 21, 1999, the Open eBook Authoring Group
announced
that it had released a final version of a new
electronic book specification.
"In a move expected to accelerate the availability of reading material
for electronic books and help ensure that consumers will have access to
reading materials from different publishers in a single, universal
format, the Open eBook (OEB) Authoring Group today released the final
version of the Open eBook Publication Structure 1.0. Open eBook
Publication Structure 1.0 defines the format that content takes when it
is converted from print to electronic form....
The specification is
expected to accelerate the availability of electronic reading material, because the
single universal format will work on all reading systems that are compliant with
the specification. As a result, publishers will be able to reach a wide audience
without separately reformatting their titles for each reading system."
Bluestone has release a new version of
Visual-XML,
a development environment for authoring XML documents and DTDs that attach to
data sources, such as Access and Oracle databases. Be sure to read the
Features & Benifits.
And get ready for a long registration form.
Oracle has released a non-beta version of its
XML Parser for Java, Version 2,
which now includes an XSLT processor.
You must register to download the software.
Microsoft and UserLand Software have submitted an
informational draft of
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). SOAP is
"a way to create widely distributed, complex computing environments that run over the
Internet using existing Internet infrastructure. SOAP is about applications communicating directly with
each other over the Internet in a very rich way. . . SOAP defines an RPC mechanism using XML for
client-server interaction across a network..."
XED XML Editor
is now available for FreeBSD, Linux, WIN32, and Solaris 2.5.
XED is "a text editor for XML document instances. It is designed to support
hand-authoring of small-to-medium size XML documents, and is optimised for keyboard input. It
works very hard to ensure that you cannot produce a non-well-formed document. Although it does
not validate, it does read DTDs and keep track of your document structure, and provides
context-based accelerators to make element and attribute entry fast and easy."
Week Ending September 17, 1999
FOP Version 0.10 Released
James Tauber released a considerably faster version of his
Formatting Object to PDF Formatter/Renderer (FOP)
on Sept. 16, 1999.
FOP uses XSL Formatting Object (stylesheets) to transform an
XML document to PDF.
MDSAX 2.0 Released
MDSAX 2.0
(Multi-Document Simple API for XML) was released by
Bill la Forge on Sept. 16, 1999.
"MDSAX transforms XML documents into structures built from your own objects.
MDSAX also validates document content, to assure that the data requirements of
your Java classes are met. Equally important, when invalid data is detected,
MDSAX indicates where in the document the error occured.
MDSAX is also ready to handle webs of interconnected XML documents, even
when several different Markup Languages are used."
United Nations and OASIS Join Forces to Produce Global XML Framework
[Press Release Excerpt]
Boston, MA, USA. / Geneva, Switzerland. September 15, 1999. -
The United Nations body for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business
(UN/CEFACT) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured
Information Standards (OASIS) have joined forces to initiate a worldwide
project to standardize XML business specifications. UN/CEFACT and
OASIS have established the
Electronic Business XML Initiative to develop a
technical framework that will enable XML to be utilized in a consistent manner
for the exchange of all electronic business data. Industry groups currently
working on XML specifications have been invited to participate in the
18-month project. The results of the Electronic Business XML Initiative will be
placed in the public domain on XML.org.
XML World Conference in Ottawa
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada was the host of
XML World
Sept. 13th to 16th, which drew approximately 400
attendees from 60 countries. Watch for an upcoming WDVL conference report.
New Tools from IBM alphaWorks
IBM announced several more free XML tools on Sept. 13th at XML World...
- Visual DTD:
a visual editor for editing and viewing DTDs.
It will generate DTDs, and W3C XML schemas as it evolves.
Provides tree, design, and source view.
- Visual XML Transformation Tool:
for composing new XML
documents based on existing XML documents.
- XSL Trace:
helps debug XSL stylesheets by stepping through
XSL scripts and showing the transformation rules as they are created
and the output as it is generated.
- XML Generator:
a Java program that creates test cases for DTDs by
generating instances of valid XML from an input DTD.
- Also, there are updated versions of
Xeena and
LotusXSL.
- As usual, see the Discussion link for each tool
for potential problems and their fixes.
XML.org Expands As XML Information Clearinghouse
[Press Release Excerpt]
Boston, MA, September 13, 1999 - OASIS, the Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information Standards, today announced
major enhancements to XML.org, the open, vendor-neutral industry
portal for XML. New XML schemas from DataChannel and the HR-XML
Consortium have been submitted to XML.org. Other content upgrades
include the addition of the
XML.org Specifications Catalog
(xml.org/xmlorg_catalog.htm), a comprehensive list of XML
specifications currently under development including links for more
information. The site also incorporates the XML.org Specification
Submission Form to encourage and enable organizations to share
their XML specifications with the community at large.
XML Phase III Begins, According to Bosak
Jon Bosak, chair of the W3C XML Coordination Group,
announced to the xml-dev
mailing list that Phase III of XML activity has begun as of Sept. 13, 1999.
The new or continuing Working Groups, indicating a shift in focus, are:
Linking, Schema, Core, Query, and Packaging.
W3C Furthers Work on XHTML
Extensible HTML (XHTML) is progressing nicely, as per the September Working Drafts
from W3C, all found on
Technical Reports and Publications page.
- XHTMLTM 1.1 - Module-based XHTML
- Modularization of XHTMLTM
- Building XHTMLTM Modules
- XHTMLTM Document Profile Requirements
- XHTMLTM Extended Forms Requirements
Reports from the August XML Developers' Conference
XML tackles wide variety of problems
is IBM's coverage of the August 1999
XML Developers' Conference.
Lisa Rein wrote a Report from Montreal for XML.com.
Link Update: E.R. Harold's Cafe con Leche XML News and Resources has moved to http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/.
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