Below is the table of contents for the XSL Techniques course:
About this course
Goals and objectives
Course requirements
How do I communicate?
How will I learn?
How will I be graded?
Course outline
Reference materials
How do I start?
XSL tools
Course software
The XSL toolkit
Authoring tools
XSLT processors
XMLSpy tutorial
XMLSpy interface
Elements
Attributes
Validating files
Transforming XML to HTML
Web search one
Intro to XSL
eXtensible style sheet language
Why use XSL?
Versions of the XSLT recommendation
An XSLT style sheet
The node tree
XSL transformations
XSLT elements
Summary
Quiz
XPath: Querying instances
Why query?
Querying an instance
Finding data in an XML instance
Querying the name from a resume
Understanding a query
XPath expressions
Matching nodes
The tree model
Evaluating XPath expressions
The result tree
Expression structures
XPath axes
XPath axis examples
Node tests
XPath functions
Using XPath expressions
XPath pitfalls
Testing XPath expressions in XMLSpy
Summary
Where to go from here
Quiz
Tutorial: Building a querying style sheet
XSL template review
Examine the XML instance
Create a working directory and save the instance
Create the style sheet structure
Non-XML output
Create the root template
Create the query instructions
Querying a single value
More single values
Formatting text output
Multiple values
Perform the transformation
What does the processor do?
Where to go from here
Assignment 1: Querying with XSLT and XPath
Description
Skills required
Methods
Read the modules
Identify the data to be queried
Build the XPath expressions to query the data
Create an XSLT style sheet using XPath
Submit the assignment
Using XSLT templates
Why are templates useful?
Templates to process a paragraph
Building a style sheet
XML declaration
The <xsl:stylesheet> tag
The root template
Calling templates
Template matching
Push and Pull processing
Default templates
Common template routines
Copy parts of the source tree
Simple transformation
Complex (nested) transformation
Sorting
Numbering
Conditional processing
XSL style sheets are XML documents
Summary
Where to go from here
Quiz
Tutorial: Building style sheet templates
Examine the XML instance
Create a working directory and save the XML instance
Create the style sheet structure
Create the root template
Create the templates
The default template
The front and body templates
The title, author and story templates
The child nodes of story
Check the style sheet
Perform the transformation
What does the processor do?
The transformation
Exercise
Summary
Creating web pages
Why create HTML?
Creating XHTML
The benefits of XHTML
Differences between HTML and XHTML
XHTML DTD
Creating a web page – an example
The style sheet
Executing the transformation
Dissecting the example
Declarations
The root template
The page header and footer
The table
Client-side vs. server-side
Extending the example
Using CSS style sheets
Tailor the ouput to the audience
Calculations and conditions
Templates for HTML transformation
Structural
Linking
Formatting
Advanced XHTML topics
Summary
Quiz
Assignment 2: XML-to-XHTML transformation
Description
Skills required
Methods
Read the modules
Choose the DTD
Create the XML
Write the style sheet
Perform the transformation
Submission
Creating web pages II
Creating HTML forms
XForms and HTML forms
Form example
Explaining the example
Creating form elements
Exercise
Multiple document output
An example
Bringing it all together
Exercise
Summary
Quiz
Tutorial: Multiple document output
Review the style sheet
Change the version
Output separate content pages
Use a variable for file names
Create links on each content page
Generate a table of contents
Create an index and a glossary
The index
The glossary
Check the style sheet
Perform the transformation
Exercise
Where to go from here
XSLT 2.0 overview
Changes in XSLT 2.0
New features in XSLT 2
XSLT 2.0 elements
New features in XSLT 2.0
Multiple document output
Grouping
Functions
Characters
Datatyping
Summary
Assignment 3: Multiple document output
Description
Skills required
Methods
Read the modules
Explore the DTD
Create the XML
Write the style sheet
Glossary
Perform the transformation
Submission
Creating print documents
PDF output
The portable document format
XSL as a formatter
The steps involved
FOP
Running FOP
The XSL-FO document
How does XSL-FO work?
Creating a .fo file
Declarations and namespaces
Page layout using page masters
Defining sequences using page sequence masters
Sequencing
Adding content with <fo:block> and <fo:inline>
Rendering XSL-FO as PDF
Exercise
Summary of XSL-FO elements in this tutorial
Web search two
Quiz
Where to go from here
Tutorial: Creating PDFs
Examine the XML instance
Set up the files for the PDF transformation
Create the style sheet structure
Write the <xsl:stylesheet> tag
Create the root template
Create the templates that set the page layouts
Add the root template: fo:root
Define the page layout: fo:layout-master-set
Define page sequences: fo:page-sequence-master
Define page sequences: fo:page-sequence
Define content holders: fo:static and fo:flow
The style sheet so far
Add the templates for the XML elements
Add the front/title and front/author template
Add the story/title and story/author templates
Add the paragraph template
Add the quote template
The completed style sheet
Transforming to PDF
Using XMLSpy to produce the PDF
Exercise
Where to go from here
Assignment 4: XML-to-PDF transformation
Description
Skills required
Methods
Read the modules
Download the assignment files
Review the DTD
Write the XSLT style sheet
Perform the transformation
Submission
Advanced PDF transformations
Print output: an example
The XSL transformation
Rendering the PDF
How does it work?
Formatting objects reference
Paragraphs
Titles
Inline formatting
Lists
Tables
Headers and footers
Graphics
Links
Summary of XSL-FO elements in this tutorial
Where to go from here
Summary
Quiz
Assignment 5: Advanced XML-to-PDF transformation
Description
Skills required
Methods
Read the modules
Collect files
Review the DTD
Augment the XSL-FO style sheet
Test the transformations
Submission
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