Re: [XBL] Abstract Unclear

On Wed, 6 Dec 2006, Doug Schepers wrote:
> 
> "The XML Binding Language (XBL) describes the ability to associate 
> elements in one document with script, event handlers, CSS, and more 
> complex content models in another document."  The first sentence in the 
> specification is not correct. XBL bindings can be in the same document 
> as the bound elements.

True, but that's not really important. The important case is the external 
document case, which is what the abstract highlights.


> Moreover, this abstract doesn't really encompass the scope of XBL's 
> abilities, and sounds wholly theoretical in places.  A reader new to Web 
> technologies would be left with little idea what this specification is 
> for.
> 
> Perhaps something along the lines of, "The XML Binding Language (XBL) 
> specifies how elements can be associated with author-created patterns 
> which alter or enhance how that element is represented to the user. 
> These changes can add behavior (such as scripted or declarative events 
> handlers), reorder content, enhance styling, or even add content.  
> These patterns are called 'bindings', and each document can have many 
> bindings.  The same element can have any binding the author wishes, 
> providing multiple possible views of the element (for example, a 
> molecule in Chemical Markup Language may be alternately represented as 
> colored text or as an image, depending on the binding).
>
> XBL works in conjunction with one or more other specifications to 
> achieve effects that are otherwise difficult or impossible.  For 
> example, XBL can be used to re-order and wrap content so that simple 
> HTML or XHTML markup can have complex CSS styles applied without 
> requiring that the markup be polluted with multiple semantically neutral 
> div elements.  XBL can also be used to provide a presentation interface 
> for XML dialects that do not have a visual aspect, such as XForms, or 
> which are not yet natively supported by the User Agent (for example, 
> MathML might be rendered as HTML in a browser that doesn't yet support 
> MathML).  In addition, it can also be used to implement new DOM 
> interfaces."

Besides your version sounding much more marketting-y and longer, I don't 
see that it's especially better.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Monday, 8 January 2007 22:01:39 UTC