The truth about XSL-FO!
All vendors in the enterprise market in the composition of documents using XSL-FO say it is a â € ~ open Standard € ™ and makes their superior solution, more modern and customer oriented proprietary drivers. Dear analysts, suppliers and customers is a direct misrepresentation. Most sellers seem to believe that the use of an XML-like structure is a kind of high status or intelligence of a technology future oriented. It's easy to fall in the field of marketing of XSL-FO, because how many really know what XSL-FO is and how it is used in Items. Honestly, do you? Really? Well, let me reiterate or possibly enlighten you:
â € ~ Open € ™ means that all structures of the definition of completed application forms are published. Standard € ~ â € ™ means that the file formats and program functions are fully compatible with a large percentage of the solutions on the market. The current vendors using XSL-FO does not fall within these categories! I found only a provider that fully published on its website the details of the version of XML specifications that are compatible and work in the specifications which apply and which no. But even that is a supplier without specifying the amount of property code creates as many additional functions that make the product is not compatible with the â € ~ € ™ open standard. All other providers to choose a simpler route from the outset by saying that their product is based on the standard â € ~ open, â € ™, which implies that the standard is a single base on which were carried out any number of proprietary extensions.
We at ISIS Papyrus could also say that we support the â € ~ open € ™ standards, such as C + +, HTTP, Linux, AFP, PDF, and so on. Propose (actually know) that none of the applications based composition XSL-FO are fully portable between vendors. Obviously, vendors do not want to be that open, it would mean that you can take the application from one provider to another at any time. Consider that a complete correspondence is not only the format of XSL-FO file, but include metadata entities, the resource assets, the external data interface, the definition of the user interface with mapping data, and process and post-processing of the definitions. If portability is a key requirement for you, ask for a written guarantee that the full implementation above can be imported into other products. You do not have to. If there is a key requirement why bother with XSL-FO?
Many years ago, when ISIS was the first and only propose that a standard must be used, our competitors claimed that it was a back and limitation. The standard single document published in the time was IBMA € ™ s AFP and have used them and still do. Then we also supported IBMA € ™ s OGL and PPFA. Today we support the import and use Today elements in XML (CSS, XSL, and can output XSL-FO), but would not say that to be a standard.
Here is a brief list of problems with XSL-FO which I shall record:
- All XML data formats have been analyzed, validated and transformed XML.
- Multiple Input Files XML XSLT require specific definitions for each combination.
- The design of XSL to XSL-FO for printing format is not completely WYSIWYG.
- Different XSL-FO processors for identical output formats are not fully supported.
- XSL-FO page by dummy regions are tables and may overlap.
- XSL-FO processors for the different objectives produce very different results.
- XSL-FO processors can not handle on the posititioning elements.
- No access to the current format position to manage spaces.
- XSL to XSL-FO for PRINTING format can not guarantee a number of pages.
- XSL-FO is unable to provide the actual number of pages an entire document.
- Majority XSL-FO formatters need, therefore, teachers predefine page rigid.
- Websites or emails XSLTâ special € ™ s need to XSL-FO format omitted.
- URI has to use XML as a substitute for the embedded resources or binaries.
- External Relative URI references reduce the portability an XML file.
- NO functions to produce standard bar codes and embedded graphics such as SVG.
- SVG conversion to target formats for printing is very imprecise.
- XSL-FO products do not use any of the XML business rules standards € ™ â € ™.
- Many custom Java,. NET or script functions are used to generate XSL-FO.
- Five to seven XML parsing and writing are the steps needed for the printed page.
- XSL-FO is therefore not suitable for high speed production (in millions)
- Many issues code page in the entry, manipulation and mapping to print the fronts.
- XSL-FO is not compatible for printing time maps designs in the pages.
- All post-processing, print management functions and resources are property.
If the vendor claims that its implementation of XSL-FO has no problems that can be really true, but it means that the product does not support XSL, XSL-FO and Standard € ™ â € ™ XSL-FO drivers.
An XSL-FO product could only be the rule if it is built on open source, but vendors have that use non-standard components, such as graphical user interface, rule, code bars or table functions. Open Source continues to evolve rapidly, while the company needed a stable solution and functionality testing. This means that in a very short time, its solution is far from the standard € ™ â € ™ that everyone else uses. When you run into a problem that the seller can not easily apply open source corrections. We use leave a few open source libraries, but never claim that they represent a standard and only used if we are in complete control of fixing the error ourselves.
Finally, the conclusion that most products that use XSL-FO are substantially too high, because if it represents a level that no original know-how that the seller is the owner and must be paid.
References:
XML, Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0. W3C http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210
Names XML – Namespaces in XML. W3C Recommendation. View http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names
XPath – XML Path Language. W3C Recommendation. View http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath
CSS2 – Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2 (CSS2). http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-CSS2-19980512
DSSSL – ISO / IEC 10179:1996. Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL).
HTML 4.0 Specification HTML. W3C Recommendation. View http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40
IANA character-sets. View ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/character-sets.
RFC2278 – N. Freed, J. Postel. IANA Charset Registration Procedures. IETF RFC 2278. See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2278.txt.
RFC2376 – XML Media Types. IETF RFC 2376. See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2376.txt.
RFC2396 – Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI), IETF RFC 2396. See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt.
UNICODE TR10 – Unicode Consortium. View http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr10/index.html.
XHTML XHTML 1.0: The Extensible HyperText Markup Language. W3C, Ver http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1
XPointer – XML Pointer Language (XPointer). W3C Working Draft. View http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr
Style for XML – W3C. View http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-stylesheet
XSL – Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL). W3C Working Draft. View http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl
XSL-FO – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XSL_Formatting_Objects
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Dr.Slobodan Milosevic vs. New World Order 2/25
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