darcusblog

Over the past two years both Microsoft and the OpenOffice community have figured out how to exploit XML and XSLT in the context of GUI productivity suites. Apple most clearly has not.

However, some Apple ISVs are starting to do just that. The best example of this is the new integrated XSLT processing embedded in OmniOutliner 3. OO has had an XML file format for the past couple of years. With OO 3, however, Omni has added:

1. an XSLT-based export/import plug-in system
2. in the Pro version, named character styles

So what does this mean in practical terms? It means OO Pro suddenly becomes a decent structured document authoring tool. A case in point is a plug-in I just wrote to convert OO to the S5 XHTML-based presentation system. Instead of harassing Omni to add support for the format, and telling them which kind of styling to support, I just do it myself. I have named style for emphasis, blockquote, and citation, and map them to appropriate output via the XSLT. You can get it here. It’s written for my own workflow, and is rather spare in features.

Now just imagine what would happen if Apple was to do this throughout the OS?

Tags: Documents, XML, XSLT

This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2005 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.