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W3C Recommendations (Specifications)

Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 Specification

This is the current specification of XML syntax which became a W3C Recommendation on February 10, 1998. "The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a subset of SGML that is completely described in this document. Its goal is to enable generic SGML [a standard since 1986] to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML. XML has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML." Readers may find Tim Bray's Annotated XML Specification more helpful. Refer also to WDVL's Introduction to XML: Structuring Data for the Web.

Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification

Resource Description Framework became a Proposed Recommendation on February 22, 1999. RDF is the basis for taking the Web from machine-readable to machine-understandable. RDF is a foundation for processing metadata, which is in general, information about data; in this case, metadata is data describing Web resources. RDF provides interoperability between applications that exchange machine-understandable information on the Web.

"RDF can be used in a variety of application areas; for example: in resource discovery to provide better search engine capabilities, in cataloging for describing the content and content relationships available at a particular Web site, page, or digital library, by intelligent software agents to facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange, in content rating, in describing collections of pages that represent a single logical "document", for describing intellectual property rights of Web pages, and for expressing the privacy preferences of a user as well as the privacy policies of a Web site. RDF with digital signatures will be key to building the "Web of Trust" for electronic commerce, collaboration, and other applications."

RDF uses the Extensible Markup Language [XML] encoding as its interchange syntax. RDF also requires the XML namespace facility to precisely associate each property with the schema that defines the property. This example is an edited version of the first page of the source of the RDF specification itself:

   <rdf:Description about=""
       xmlns:rdf="http://w3.org/TR/1999/PR-rdf-syntax-19990105#"
       dc:Title="Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and 
       Syntax Specification"
       dc:Description="The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is 
          a foundation for processing metadata; it provides 
	  interoperability between applications that exchange 
	  machine-understandable information on the Web.  RDF 
	  emphasizes facilities to enable automated processing of
          Web resources."
       dc:Publisher="World Wide Web Consortium"
       dc:Date="1999-01-05"
       dc:Format="text/html"
       dc:Type="technical specification"
       dc:Language="en">
     <dc:Subject rdf:resource="http://purl.org/net/ddc/025.316"
          ddc:Class="025.316"
          ddc:Heading="Machine-readable catalog record formats" />
      <dc:Creator>
      <rdf:Bag rdf:_1="Ora Lassila"
                rdf:_2="Ralph Swick" />
     </dc:Creator>
   </rdf:Description>

The RDF specification does not contain markup declarations. Rick Jelliffe created a simple DTD for RDF and a plain text version. From Academia Sinica, Taipei.

Namespaces in XML

Namespaces in XML became a W3C Recommendation on January 14, 1999. Namespaces provide a simple method for qualifying element and attribute names used in XML documents by associating them with namespaces identified by URI references. This is necessary to avoid collisions that would otherwise occur when, in a single XML doucment, multiple XML vocabularies are referenced and they happen to use some of the same names for elements and/or attributes. Names from XML namespaces may appear as qualified names, which contain a single colon, separating the name into a namespace prefix (which selects the namespace) and a local part. An example from the spec follows:

<x xmlns:edi='http://ecommerce.org/schema'>
    <!-- 'price' namespace is http://ecommerce.org/schema -->
    <edi:price units='Euro'>32.18</edi:price>
</x>

Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification  

After five Working Drafts, the DOM Level 1 Proposed Recommendation was announced on August 18, 1998. DOM became a W3C Recommendation on October 1, 1998. If you program in JavaScript, you should follow what happens to DOM, which also will lead to a common base for Dynamic HTML (DHTML). According to the abstract from the W3C document, "This specification defines the Document Object Model Level 1, a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents. The Document Object Model provides a standard set of objects for representing HTML and XML documents, a standard model of how these objects can be combined, and a standard interface for accessing and manipulating them. Vendors can support the DOM as an interface to their proprietary data structures and APIs, and content authors can write to the standard DOM interfaces rather than product-specific APIs, thus increasing interoperability on the Web." DOM is applicable to JavaScript, Dynamic HTML, XML, and HTML.

See also the W3C DOM home page, the W3C DOM Activity page, and especially the W3C DOM FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). And of course, see WDVL's DOM page.

Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) 1.0 Specification       [Vocabulary]

Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile") is the W3C standard for multimedia authoring. "SMIL allows integrating a set of independent multimedia objects into a synchronized multimedia presentation. Using SMIL, an author can: 1) describe the temporal behavior of the presentation; 2) describe the layout of the presentation on a screen; 3) associate hyperlinks with media objects." SMIL uses XML for its syntax, so there is a SMIL DTD. Unfortunately, Microsoft and Macromedia have taken an anti-SMIL position, although support from RealNetworks, DEC, and Netscape is strong. For major SMIL sites, see WebDeveloper.com's SMIL Links and Resources and also Just SMIL.

Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) 1.0 Specification       [Vocabulary]

"MathML is an XML application for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the Web....This specification of the markup language MathML is intended primarily for a readership consisting of those who will be developing or implementing renderers or editors using it, or software that will communicate using MathML as a protocol for input or output." Since MathML uses XML syntax, there is a MathML DTD.

WebCGM (Computer Graphics Metafile)       [Vocabulary]

WebCGM became a W3C Proposed Recommendation early in December 1998. If WebCGM follows past patterns, it will become a full Recommendation within 1-2 months. Excerpt:

"CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) has been an ISO standard for vector and composite vector/raster picture definition since 1987. It has been a registered MIME type since 1995. CGM has a significant following in technical illustration, electronic documentation, geophysical data visualization, amongst other application areas. WebCGM is a profile for the effective application of CGM in Web electronic documents. WebCGM has been a joint effort of the CGM Open Consortium, in collaboration with W3C staff under the W3C-LA project. It represents an important interoperability agreement amongst major users and implementors of CGM, and thereby unifies current diverse approaches to CGM utilization in Web document applications. WebCGM's clear and unambiguous conformance requirements will enhance interoperability of implementations, and it should be possible to leverage existing CGM validation tools, test suites, and the product certification testing services for application to WebCGM . While WebCGM is a binary file format and is not "stylable", nevertheless WebCGM follows published W3C requirements for a scalable graphics format where such are applicable. The design criteria for the graphical content of WebCGM aimed at a balance between graphical expressive power on the one hand, and simplicity and implementability on the other. A small but powerful set of metadata elements is standardized in WebCGM, to support the functionalities of: hyperlinking and document navigation; picture structuring and layering; and, search and query on WebCGM picture."

W3C Proposed Recommendations

Resource Description Framework (RDF) Schemas

RDF Schemas became a Proposed Recommendation on March 3, 1999. "Resource description communities require the ability to say certain things about certain kinds of resources. For describing bibliographic resources, for example, descriptive attributes including "author", "title", and "subject" are common. For digital certification, attributes such as "checksum" and "authorization" are often required. The declaration of these properties (attributes) and their corresponding semantics are defined in the context of RDF as an RDF schema. A schema defines not only the properties of the resource (Title, Author, Subject, Size, Color, etc.) but may also define the kinds of resources being described (books, Web pages, people, companies, etc.). This document does not specify a vocabulary of descriptive elements such as "author". Instead, it specifies the mechanisms needed to define such elements, to define the classes of resources they may be used with, to restrict possible combinations of classes and relationships, and to detect violations of those restrictions. Thus, this document defines a schema specification language. More succinctly, the RDF Schema mechanism provides a basic type system for use in RDF models. It defines resources and properties such as Class and subClassOf that are used in specifying application-specific schemas."

Associating Stylesheets with XML Documents

Associating Stylesheets with XML Documents became a Proposed Recommendation on January 14, 1999. "This document allows a stylesheet to be associated with an XML document by including one or more processing instructions with a target of xml-stylesheet in the document's prolog....There was an urgent requirement for a specification for stylesheet linking that could be completed in time for the next release from major browser vendors."

W3C Working Drafts

Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Specification

Just when most of us were catching on to DOM, Level 1, W3C was busy preparing the Working Draft for DOM, Level 2, which Lauren Wood et al delivered on December 18, 1998. Here's how they describe it:

"This specification defines the Document Object Model Level 2, a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents. The Document Object Model Level 2 builds on the Document Object Model Level 1. Level 2 adds interfaces for a Cascading Style Sheets object model, an event model, and a query interface, amongst others. This first release of the Document Object Model Level 2 does not have all these interfaces. It contains interfaces for the Cascading Style Sheets object model, the Range object model, filters and iterators, and the Events object model. The other interfaces will be added in future versions of this specification."

XHTML 1.0: The Extensible HyperText Markup Language: A Reformulation of HTML 4.0 in XML 1.0       [Vocabulary]

XHTML (formerly called simply Reformulating HTML in XML) is the third Working Draft from the new HTML Working Group, published March 4, 1999. This is a very significant step for the W3C since it specifies how (as they have previously stated) all future HTML changes will be expressed in terms of XML. Note: The first version of this Working Draft used the codename Voyager, but the new name appears to be XHTML. See also the HTML home page and the HTML Activity page.

Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL), Version 1.0

The first XSL Working Draft was announced by the W3C on August 18, 1998. The second draft was published Dec. 16, 1998. Over one year in the making (since the now obsolete initial submission by Microsoft, ArborText and Inso Corp), this draft contains many significant changes from anything you may have read about XSL before. The XSL Working Draft was endorsed by Adobe, Bitstream, Enigma, IBM, Inso, Lotus, Microsoft, Netscape, RivCom, SoftQuad and Sun Microsystems. Essentially, Extensible Style Language is to XML what CSS is to HTML. XSL provides the presentation aspects that may be applied to the structure of a document marked up in XML. However, XSL is far more powerful than CSS since it is based on the even more flexible DSSSL (Document Style Semantics and Specification Language) "The powerful capabilities provided by XSL allow: formatting of source elements based on ancestry/descendency, position, and uniqueness; the creation of formatting constructs including generated text and graphics; the definition of reusable formatting macros; writing-direction independent stylesheets; extensible set of formatting objects." See also the XSL section of the W3C Style pages and the XSL Requirements Summary.

XML Linking Language (XLink)

On 3/3/98, the 7/97 Extensible Linking Language (XLL) Working Draft was split into 3 pieces: XLink: linking mechanisms Working Draft, XPointer: addressing schemes Working Draft, and Design Principles Note. XLink describes how to create uni-directional links as well as multi-directional, extended links. Link Behavior is specified by show and/or actuate attributes. Link types include inline, out-of-line, extended, and extended link groups. See also XML Linking Language (XLink) Design Principles and XML XLink Requirements Version 1.0.

XML Pointer Language (XPointer)

XPointer (Extended Pointer) describes how to construct specific references to elements, character strings, and other parts of XML documents, whether or not they bear an explicit ID attribute; link to chunks in someone else's documents. See also XML XPointer Requirements Version 1.0.

XML Fragment Interchange

XML Fragment Interchange is a Working Draft from the XML Fragments Working Group. "The XML standard supports logical documents composed of possibly several entities. It may be desirable to view or edit one or more of the entities or parts of entities while having no interest, need, or ability to view or edit the entire document. The problem, then, is how to provide to a recipient of such a fragment the appropriate information about the context that fragment had in the larger document that is not available to the recipient. The XML Fragment WG is chartered with defining a way to send fragments of an XML document--regardless of whether the fragments are predetermined entities or not--without having to send all of the containing document up to the part in question. This document defines Version 1.0 of the [eventual] W3C Recommendation that addresses this issue."

P3P Harmonized Vocabulary Specification

Description to be added soon.

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)

SVG is the first Working Draft on this topic from the Scalable Vector Graphics Working Group. "SVG is a language for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML. SVG allows for three types of graphic objects: vector graphic shapes (e.g., paths consisting of straight lines and curves), images and text. Graphical objects can be grouped, styled, transformed and composited into previously rendered objects. The feature set includes nested transformations, clipping paths, alpha masks, filter effects, template objects and extensibility. SVG drawings can be dynamic and interactive. The Document Object Model (DOM) for SVG allows for straightforward and efficient vector graphics animation via scripting. A rich set of event handlers such as onmouseover and onclick can be assigned to any SVG graphical object. Because of its compatibility and leveraging of other Web standards, features like scripting can be done on HTML and SVG elements simultaneously within the same Web page."

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Requirements

"The W3C has chartered a Scalable Vector Graphics working group to produce a specification for an SVG format, written as a modular XML tagset and usable as an XML namespace, which can be widely implemented in browsers and authoring tools and which is suitable for widespread adoption by the content authoring community as a replacement for many current uses of raster graphics. This will mean that the graphics in Web documents will be smaller, faster, more interactive, and be displayable on a wider range of device resolutions from small mobile devices through office computer monitors to high resolution printers. This will be a significant advance in Web functionality. Interoperability, both in multiple browsers across multiple platforms and in multiple authoring tools (both read and write), is a prime focus.... This document lists both SVG Design Goals and SVG Detailed Requirements...." The home page for the W3C graphics activity is http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Activity. The graphics activity topics are: portability, formats, content negotiation, plug-ins, on-demand conversion, quality/metadata, scalability, and responsiveness.

W3C Notes (Proposals from Members, etc.)

Document Definition Markup Language (DDML) Specification, Version 1.0

DDML "is a schema language for XML documents. DDML encodes the logical (as opposed to physical) content of DTDs in an XML document. This allows schema information to be explored and used with widely available XML tools. DDML is deliberately simple, providing an initial base for implementations. While introducing as few complicating factors as possible, DDML has been designed with future extensions, such as data typing and schema reuse, in mind." Compare to SOX, DCD, and XML-Data.

Schema for Object-oriented XML (SOX)       [Vocabulary]  

SOX builds upon XML-Data and DCD to provide a major set of enhancements to XML useful for software development (datatypes, inheritance, embedded documentation, etc.). "SOX provides an alternative to XML DTDs for modeling markup relationships to enable more efficient software development processes for distributed applications. SOX also provides basic intrinsic datatypes, an extensible datatyping mechanism, content model and attribute interface inheritance, a powerful namespace mechanism, and embedded documentation. As compared to XML DTDs, SOX dramatically decreases the complexity of supporting interoperation among heterogenous applications by facilitating software mapping of XML data structures, expressing domain abstractions and common relationships directly and explicitly, enabling reuse at the document design and the application programming levels, and supporting the generation of common application components."

XML Data

Description to be added soon.

Introduction to RDF Metadata

Description to be added soon.

A Discussion of the Relationship Between RDF-Schema and UML

See also the vocabularies XMI and UXF elsewhere on this page. Description to be added soon.

W3C Data Formats

Description to be added soon.

Web Architecture: Extensible Languages

Description to be added soon.

Document Content Description for XML (DCD)

DCD was submitted by Microsoft, IBM, and Textuality. "This document proposes a structural schema facility, Document Content Description (DCD), for specifying rules covering the structure and content of XML documents. The DCD proposal incorporates a subset of the XML-Data Submission and expresses it in a way which is consistent with the ongoing W3C RDF (Resource Description Framework) effort; in particular, DCD is an RDF vocabulary. DCD is intended to define document constraints in an XML syntax; these constraints may be used in the same fashion as traditional XML DTDs. DCD also provides additional properties, such as basic datatypes."

XML-QL: A Query Language for XML

XML-QL is the work of AT&T Labs, INRIA, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Washington. XML-QL is a query language for XML which has a SELECT-WHERE construct, like SQL, and borrows features of query languages recently developed by the database research community for semistructured data. "One important application [of XML] is interchange of electronic data (EDI) between two or more data sources on the Web. This problem is increasingly important as more businesses choose to provide access to their databases and to exchange data with related businesses and organizations. In this note, we focus on XML's application to EDI. Specifically, we take a database view, as opposed to document view, of XML: we consider an XML document to be a database and a DTD to be a database schema."

DrawML, Markup for Scalable and Intelligent Drawings       [Vocabulary]

DrawML is a 2D scalable graphics language designed to facilitate the creation of simple technical drawings. Furthermore (and most importantly), DrawML focuses on the process of maintaining and refining a drawing. A drawing should be as easy to update as the document it resides in.

DrawML is based on the following requirements and criteria:

• It should be possible to embed drawings in SGML/XML documents in the same way as CALS tables are embedded.

• It should be possible reuse elements from the parent DTD inside the embedded drawing.

• When structure is added to drawings, it should be possible to define algorithms to handle the positioning and automatic resizing of visual elements.

• The typical drawing is not WYSIWYG.

The reason for the focus on maintenance is the increased importance of intranets. Up to now internet technology has been used primarily for publishing. People working within an intranet expect to create and change documents on-the-fly.

Signed Document Markup Language (SDML)       [Vocabulary]

Description to be added soon.

Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol       [Vocabulary]

Vignette, Adobe Systems, Sun Microsystems, News Internet Services, Channelware Inc. contributed this Note to W3C. "This document describes the Information and Content Exchange protocol for use by content syndicators and their subscribers. The ICE protocol defines the roles and responsibilities of syndicators and subscribers, defines the format and method of content exchange, and provides support for management and control of syndication relationships. We expect ICE to be useful in automating content exchange and reuse, both in traditional publishing contexts and in business-to-business relationships."

XML in HTML Meeting Report

Description to be added soon.

Hyper Graphics Markup Language (HGML)       [Vocabulary]

Description to be added soon.

Vector Markup Language (VML)       [Vocabulary]

Description to be added soon.

Precision Graphics Markup Language (PGML)       [Vocabulary]

Description to be added soon.

WebBroker: Distributed Object Communication on the Web

Description to be added soon.

Displaying SMIL Basic Layout with a CSS2 Rendering engine

Description to be added soon.

Statement on the Intent and Use of PICS: Using PICS Well

Description to be added soon.

Web Interface Definition Language (WIDL)       [Vocabulary]

WIDL from WebMethods, Inc. was one of the earliest vocabularies, a small DTD that defines Services, Inputs, Outputs, Bindings, Variables, and Conditions. WIDL web-enables non-browser applications.

The Open Software Description Format (OSD)       [Vocabulary]

Description to be added soon.

Channel Definition Format (CDF)       [Vocabulary]

Description to be added soon.

Non-W3C Vocabularies

Astronomical Instrument Markup Language (AIML)       [Vocabulary]

AIML is the first implementation of the more general Instrument Markup Language (IML). These vocabularies are under development by NASA/GSFC and AppNet, Inc. Dialects such as PAML (Pipeline Algorithm ML) and IGS (Instrument GUI Stylesheet [XSL]) will be added in the near future. AIML is an instrument description that encompasses instrument characteristics, control commands, data stream descriptions (including image and housekeeping data), message formats, communication mechanisms, and pipeline algorithm descriptions. AIML also supports role-specific documentation and GUI component generation.

Astronomical Markup Language (AML)       [Vocabulary]

Damien Guillaume and Fionn Murtagh (University of Ulster, Observatoire Astronomique deStrasbourg) "....have defined an XML language for astronomy, called AML (Astronomical Markup Language), able to represent meta-information for astronomical objects, tables, articles and authors. The various AML documents created have links between them, and an innovative tool can cluster the documents with a graph-partitioning algorithm using the links. The result is displayed on a density map similar to Kohonen Self-Organising Maps...." Astronomical Markup Language is "....aimed at being a standard exchange format for metadata in astronomy. AML now supports the following objects (in the object-oriented sense): astronomical object, article, table, set of tables, image, person. This means that all these objects can be described with the same language, allowing easier establishing of links between them, and the creation of programs handling all these objects with the same user interface." The AML DTD and many examples including an applet viewer are provided.

Biopolymer Markup Language (BIOML)       [Vocabulary]

BIOML is "designed to be used for the annotation of biopolymer sequence information. BIOML would allow the full specification of all experimental information known about molecular entities composed of biopolymers, such as proteins and genes."

Chemical Markup Language (CML)       [Vocabulary]

CML was one of the first XML applications, dating back to 1996 and 1997. "CML is a powerful generic tool for management of molecular and technical information, especially geared to Inter- and Intra-net use. Object-Oriented, based on Java and SGML it covers a wide range of chemical disciplines, some of which are shown in the screenshots from the Java-based CMLviewer software." See also the entry on the JUMBO browser in WDVL's XML Software Guide.

Commerce XML (cXML)       [Vocabulary]

cXML is a new proposed standard being developed by "more than 40 leading companies" for business-to-business electronic commerce. "cXML defines a request/response process for the exchange of transaction information. These business processes include purchase orders, change orders, acknowledgments, status updates, ship notifications and payment transactions. The contributors to the cXML initiative are focused on achieving reference implementations through creation and rapid iteration of cXML. The cXML specification, including reference production implementations and associated implementation knowledge, will be submitted to the appropriate standards organizations. The cXML initiative is therefore complementary to existing XML initiatives led by CommerceNet, RosettaNet, Information & Content Exchange (ICE) and Open Buying on the Internet (OBI). The cXML specification will be made publicly available in March 1999."

Common Business Library (xCBL)

"Commerce One's Common Business Library (xCBL) 2.0 is the first open XML specification for the cross-industry exchange of business documents such as product descriptions, purchase orders, invoices, and shipping schedules. xCBL 2.0 is a set of XML building blocks and a document framework that allows the creation of robust, reusable, XML documents for electronic commerce. Using the xCBL 2.0 document framework, businesses everywhere can seamlessly exchange business documents of different types, resulting in frictionless electronic commerce across multiple trading communities. For businesses already using traditional Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standards, xCBL 2.0 provides a transition path to an XML-based commerce capability."

For a related effort, note the eCo Framework Project and Working Group. CommerceNet is chartering the eCo Framework Project and Working Group "to develop a common framework for interoperability among XML-based application standards and key electronic commerce environments. The project's working group will develop a specification for content names and definitions in electronic commerce documents, and an interoperable transaction framework specification. The eCo Framework Working Group is chartered to define a common framework from an ever-growing complement of electronic commerce related specifications, including Catalog Information Specification, Channel Definition Format (CDF), Common Business Library (CBL), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Internet Content Exchange (ICE), Open Buying on the Internet (OBI), Open Financial Exchange (OFX), Open Trading Protocol (OTP), and XML. The working group, modelled after the successful Davenport and XML working groups, includes industry experts from Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Sun Microsystems, RosettaNet, and Veo Systems."

Conceptual Knowledge Markup Language (CKML)       [Vocabulary]

[NOTE: Links to http://asimov.eecs.wsu.edu/WAVE/Ontologies/CKML/ are no longer responding.] CKML follows the philosophy of Conceptual Knowledge Processing (CKP), a principled approach to knowledge representation and data analysis being developed by Rudolf Wille and colleagues at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt. This approach "advocates methods and instruments of Conceptual Knowledge Processing which support people in their rational thinking, judgement and acting and promote critical discussion." CKML is an extension of OML. Both are part of WAVE (Web Analysis and Visualization Environment).

Extensible Logfile Format (XLF)       [Vocabulary]

"XLF is XML-based Log Format designed to be extensible and universal.... The XLF Initiative is organized by Don Park, CTO of Docuverse, to create the XLF specification. Currently there are about 30 participants from XML, Server, and Log Analyzer industries. Initiative participants communicate primarily over the XLF mailing list concerning design issues."

FlixML       [Vocabulary]

FlixML is an interesting application for creating descriptions of B movies. FlixML is intended mostly as a tutorial or demo application, one which exercises a reasonably broad range of XML features and facilities (including XLink and XPointer). The FlixML DTD is also available.

Human Resources Markup Language (HRML)       [Vocabulary]

"HireScape is committed to developing and supporting standards that streamline HR-related transactions. Our first area of focus is on helping develop "HR EDI" standards by which "recruitment data" can be transacted between entities such as corporations, job boards, applicant tracking systems, enterprise staffing applications, etc. The emergence of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) has provided a technically sound basis for expressing such standards. HRML (Human Resources Markup Language) is compliant with XML syntax, and in this, the first release, we present a 'well-formed' (non-type-valid) syntax for representing job listings. We are formalizing this with a DTD, which will very soon be made publicly available."

Human Resources XML (HR XML)       [Vocabulary]

"Some of the possible benefits of using XML to describe HR data and transactions are: Resumes, job postings, and other recruiting data could be more easily exchanged between employers, on-line job banks, applicant tracking systems, recruiters, and recruiting systems. Richly descriptive XML for resumes and job announcements could improve recruiting results by making it easier to search, index, and retrieve resumes and job postings. XML would make it easier to exchange data between systems made by different vendors. Some data capture and reprocessing tasks could be eliminated since XML-compliant HR documents (for example, a performance appraisal prepared with an XML-compliant word processor) could be loaded into directly into a database."

Java Speech Markup Language (JSML)       [Vocabulary]

"The Java Speech Markup Language (JSML) is used by applications to annotate text input to Java Speech API speech synthesizers. The JSML elements provide a speech synthesizer with detailed information on how to say the text."

Learning Material Markup Language (LMML)       [Vocabulary]

" LMML is an implementation of the XML binding of the teachware-specific meta-model described in Adaptive Knowledge Management: A Meta-Modeling Approach and its Binding to XML, 2000. "

Music Markup Language (MusicML)       [Vocabulary]

MusicML uses a Java applet to parse an instance of a Music Markup Language document. The applet renders each element into a Java Image which is then displayed on the web page. The result is the display of sheet music with a professional look although the input is plain text (MusicML). See the MusicML DTD.

Open Financial Exchange (OFX)       [Vocabulary]

"Open Financial Exchange is a unified specification for the electronic exchange of financial data between financial institutions, business and consumers via the Internet. Created by CheckFree, Intuit and Microsoft in early 1997, Open Financial Exchange supports a wide range of financial activities including consumer and small business banking; consumer and small business bill payment; bill presentment and investments, including stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Other financial services, including financial planning and insurance, will be added in the future and will be incorporated into the specification." See also Microsoft in the Financial Services Industry.

Open Trading Protocol (OTP)       [Vocabulary]

"OTP is a protocol for the development of software products that will permit product interoperability for the electronic purchase that is independent of the chosen payment mechanism -- OTP encapsulates the payment with the offers/invoice/receipts for payment and delivery."

Question and Answer Markup Language (QAML)       [Vocabulary]

QAML is a simple markup language for FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). It is suitable for FAQs and has also been used for inhouse information systems. QAML 1.0 was an SGML DTD from faqs.org. QAML 2 is an XML version, with support for internationalization, accessability, PDAs or WebPhones, and stylesheets. From Academia Sinica, Taipei. See also the QAML English Home Page and the "Chinese XML Now" English Home Page which includes an example with an associated CSS (stylesheet).

Structured Graph Format (SGF)       [Vocabulary]

SGF is an XML format, which has been designed for describing the structure of Web sites. Structured Graphs are a mathematical formalism designed to support scalable browsing and editing of large graphs. They were initally developed in the context of project management and software engineering.

TEI Lite and Loose       [Vocabulary]

TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) is the leading academic vocabulary for literature and is also used for professional reference publishing. It covers many areas: books, plays, dictionaries, poetry. TEI defined a very large SGML vocabulary; TEI Lite was a simpler one for many basic uses; TEI Lite and Loose is an XML version. From Academia Sinica, Taipei.

Tutorial Markup Language (TML)       [Vocabulary]

"Tutorial Markup Language (TML) is an interchange format designed to separate the semantic content of a question from its screen layout or formatting. The language is designed to support several different types of question within the same content model. It is essentially a super-set of HTML, with new elements added to describe question information."

UML eXchange Format (UXF)       [Vocabulary]

UXF is a vocabulary proposed to express, publish, access and exchange UML (Unified Modeling Language) models. It serves as a communication vehicle for developers, and as a well-structured data format for development tools.

Voice Markup Language (VoxML)       [Vocabulary]

From Motorola's web site: " The VoxML markup language for voice applications allows developers to simply and easily add speech interfaces to their Web applications or content. The VoxML language uses Internet technologies and standards - so developing VoxML applications is similar to developing Web applications. VoxML applications are written in the form of dialogues - allowing users to interact naturally with the application. These dialogues are interpreted by voice browsers - just as HTML pages are interpreted by web browsers. Now, people can connect with Internet information from any telephone or voice-enabled device. VoxML applications are hosted on standard Web servers. So, adding voice interfaces to existing Web sites is simple and straightforward. VoxML technology gives Web Application Providers opportunities to reach new distribution channels and potential new revenue streams by providing access to the Web when people are away from their desktop."

Web Distributed Data Exchange (WDDX)       [Vocabulary]

WDDX is technology that Allaire (maker of HomeSite and ColdFusion) developed in 1998 and released openly to the public. WDDX provides a language and platform neutral mechanism for exchanging richly structured data. The tools that Allaire and third parties have developed allow the exchange of data between CFML, ASP, COM/DCOM, Java, Perl, Python, PHP, JavaScript, etc. See also the article Live Data from WDDX by Lisa Rein.

Weather Observation Markup Format (OMF)       [Vocabulary]

The Weather Report Markup application uses XML for annotating weather observation reports, forecasts and advisories as issued by Weather Meteorological Organization (WMO), the National Weather Center and Air Force Global Weather Center.

XBEL: XML Bookmark Exchange Language:       [Vocabulary]

XBEL from the Python XML SIG "represents a Web browser's collection of bookmarks. Converters are available to convert several browser-specific formats (Netscape, MS Internet Explorer, Opera, Lynx) to XBEL and back."

XGMML: eXtensible Graph Markup and Modeling Language       [Vocabulary]

XGMML is a graph description language that "uses tags to describe nodes and edges of a graph. The purpose of XGMML is to make possible the exchange of graphs between differents authoring and browsing tools for graphs. The conversion of graphs written in GML to XGMML is trivial. Using XSL with XGMML allows the translation of graphs to different formats. XGMML was created to be used for the WWWPAL System that visualizes web sites as a graph. Web Robots can navigate through a web site and save the graph information as an XGMML file. XGMML, as any other XML application, can be mixed with other markup languages to describe additional graph, node and/or edge information."

XML Metadata Interchange Format (XMI from IBM)       [Vocabulary]

"IBM, Unisys, and other industry leaders are proposing a new open industry standard that would combine the benefits of the web-based XML standard for defining, validating, and sharing document formats on the web with the benefits of the object-oriented Unified Markup Language (UML), a specification of the Object Management Group (OMG) that provides application developers a common language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting distributed objects and business models. The XML Metadata Interchange Format (XMI) specifies an open information interchange model that is intended to give developers working with object technology the ability to exchange programming data over the Internet in a standardized way, thus bringing consistency and compatibility to applications created in collaborative environments....The proposed standard will allow developers to leverage the web to exchange data between tools, applications, and repositories to create secure, distributed applications built in a team development environment."

XML for Electronic Data Interchange (XML/EDI)       [Vocabulary]

"XML/EDI provides a standard framework/format to describe different types of data -- for example, an invoice, healthcare claim, project status -- so that the information be it in a transaction, catalog or a document in a workflow can be searched, decoded, manipulated, and displayed consistently and correctly by implementing EDI dictionaries."

XSchema Spec, Version 1.0       [Vocabulary]

XSchema from Simon St.Laurent and the xml-dev mailing list is intended to permit more complete language descriptions than DTDs permit. It is related to other efforts: Document Content Description for XML (DCD), Schema for Object-Oriented XML (SOX), and XML-Data.

Related Resources: XML Specifications and Schema

• XML.org has a schema catalog that lists numerous cross-industry XML vocabulary efforts.
• Microsoft's BizTalk.org site is another schema cataloging effort.
• More generally, see WDVL's Schema Web Sites, Catalogs and Repositories list on our XML Schema page.
• XML.COM has several entry points to related resources:
  • XML Standards List (chronological)
  • XML Standards List (alphabetical)
  • XML Resource Guide: Category Listing (categories such as: Binary Data, Information Search and Retrieval, UML, VRML, Schema, etc.)
  • W3C Standards
• James K Tauber's SCHEMA.NET
• Robin Cover's XML Applications and Industry Initiatives
• Official list of W3C specifications and proposals: W3C Technical Reports & Publications