[kwlug-disc] XML / XSL / XSD/ XSLT 'development' 'environment' / 'gui'?

[Richard Weait]

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 3:56 PM, unsolicited <unsolicited at swiz.ca> wrote:
...
> Asking there too. No solutions / long term problem for that community, too.
> Not being a Linux community, asked here. Bit of chicken and egg here -
> learning curve. If I knew what I was looking for, I could try to leverage to
> the other platform.

Oddly, I've been there.  There was an OpenStreetMap rendering program
that used xsl style sheets.  OpenStreetMap data is XML.  xslt did the
rendering.  Even oddly-er, the program allowed distributed rendering
so that many devices could combine to render an area faster. The end
solution for the OpenStreetMap community was 1) find that XML is bad
enough without needlessly subjecting oneself to xsl and xslt.  2)
Maintainer gives up on the code.  3) it falls from use.

You haven't decided to follow that path.

Yet.

So, I'll present two alternatives that I've used.

1) regexes to hack the XML.  This is the stupidest idea in the world.
Regexes are not suited to XML and vice-versa.  Don't do this.  But it
works, sometimes, FVSO "works".

2) hack the HTML.  use the existing / working xsl and then
post-process by hacking the resulting HTML by changing the CSS.  html
and css editing tools are fairly mature and not too user-hostile.

And obviously, try changing the xsl to get the style you want rather
than the style they gave you.  Try something other than the default
fancy style if you are finding it a bit opaque to improve or otherwise
end to your will. It may be that a simpler / earlier style will be
simpler to grok.  But I'm sure you've done that already.