|
XML and Web Services In The News - 24 November 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by BEA Systems, Inc.
HEADLINES:
Last Call Review for XML Schema Patterns for Databinding
Jonathan Calladine, George Cowe (et al., eds), W3C Technical Reports
The W3C XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Working Group, part of the
W3C Web Services Activity, has released two working drafts for review.
The mission of this Working Group is to define a set of XML Schema
patterns that will be efficiently implementable by the broad community
who use XML databindings. Patterns which may prove useful to model
include abstractions of structures common across a wide variety of
programming environments, such as hash tables, vectors, and collections.
There are several ways of representing such abstracted data structures
and Web Services toolkits are currently using ad hoc technologies to
infer the most suitable language mapping when processing XML Schemas.
Agreeing on a set of XML Schema patterns for which databinding
optimizations can be made will facilitate the ability of Web services
and other toolkits to expose a more comprehensible data model to the
developer. The WG has published a First Public Working Draft for
"Advanced XML Schema Patterns for Databinding Version 1.0." This
document defines an advanced set of example XML Schema 1.0 constructs
and types in the form of concrete XPath 2.0 expressions. These patterns
are known to be in widespread use and considered to be compatible with
databinding implementations. Implementers of databinding tools may find
these patterns useful to represent simple and common place data
structures. Ensuring tools recognise at least these simple XML Schema
1.0 patterns and present them in terms most appropriate to the specific
language, database or environment will provide an improved user
experience when using databinding tools. The WG has also issued a Last
Call Working Draft for the "Basic XML Schema Patterns for Databinding
Version 1.0" specification. A databinding tool generates a mapping
between XML 1.0 documents which conform to an XML Schema 1.0 schema and
an internal data representation. For example, a Web services databinding
tool may use XML Schema 1.0 descriptions inside a WSDL 2.0 or WSDL 1.1
document to produce and consume XML and SOAP messages in terms of data
structures in a programming language or data held inside a database.
See also: Advanced XML Schema Patterns
New Google Search Appliance Delivers Inclusive Search Results
Mike Heck, InfoWorld
Enterprise search is much like air and water: Users expect it to be
available without a second thought. Google and ISYS continue to perfect
their enterprise offerings to do just that. The Google Search Appliance
4.6.4 is much improved: the new One Box for Enterprise set of APIs
enables users to securely access business applications, such as CRM or
BI systems, from the Google search box — and have this information
presented separately from public search results. The Admin Console UI
remains a collection of basic Web pages and forms accessed from a
straightforward navigation tree. I also set up KeyMatches, to give
preference to specific results for common queries; Query Expansion, to
enlarge a query to include multiple words with identical meanings; and
Synonym lists. Changing the basic look of the search box and results
was quick; more extensive changes didn't take too much longer using the
XSLT style-sheet editor. The Google Search Appliance provides a solid
range of security and access control, omitting documents from search
results if users aren't entitled to see them. The system indexes both
public and restricted information — and enforces document-level
security policies at search time. Search results were consistently top-
quality. At the basic level, I searched information protected by basic
HTTP authentication, and I integrated the appliance with Lotus Notes to
crawl a Lotus Domino server. New conveniences include number and date
ranges that users can specify to narrow down results. The OneBox
technology creates a trigger that determines whether the search is
relevant to a OneBox module, such as finding customer information within
your Salesforce.com account. Google then passes appropriate security
credentials to the provider, gets the results in XML, transforms the
data into HTML based on an XSL template, and presents the results to
the user in line with their other search results. This type of mashup
is one of the more important developments in enterprise search. Users
get relevant information from document management systems, Oracle
purchase requisitions, SAS reports, and others within the featured area
of the search results — all without any special steps.
Adapt Web Applications to Work With Multiple Browsers
Hong Guang, INM developerWorks
The features of different Web browsers, such as language settings and
JavaScript support, can cause Web applications to work differently from
one browser to another. This lack of continuity among browsers not only
causes an application to look bad, but it often causes it to break.
This article presents a number of tips you can follow to solve some of
these problems. The main reason that Web pages cannot work everywhere
is that different kinds of browsers support different standards. The
best way to overcome this is to use only common attributes and methods.
Sometimes, however, you must write special code. The author offers a
number of tips, such as how to implement the innerText attribute in
Mozilla-based browsers, how to use variables to represent geometry
values to make them available for all browsers, and how to adjust the
position of an element by the offset of the origin when the page is
shown in Internet Explorer from right to left. The article also shows
how to get a multilane tree view list, how to set the proper size for
DIV elements, and how to support browsers that don't support JavaScript
W3C Last Call Review for Compound Document Framework and WICD Profiles
Timur Mehrvarz, Lasse Pajunen (et al., eds), W3C Technical Reports
W3C's Compound Document Formats Working Group has released four Last
Call Working Drafts. A Compound Document is the W3C term for a document
that combines multiple formats, such as XHTML, SVG, SMIL, and XForms.
When combining user interface markups, specific problems have to be
resolved that are not addressed by the individual markups specifications,
such as the propagation of events across markups, the combination of
rendering or the user interaction model with a combined document. The
Compound Document Formats working group addresses these types of
problems. This work is divided in phases and two technical solutions:
combining by reference and by inclusion. The group is addressing the
semantics of combining markups, which goes beyond the mechanics and
syntactical elements used to combine markups. The semantic of combining
markup is, to a large extent, specific to any two markups being combined.
For example, including SVG markup in an XHTML document can be done in
various ways and there is a need to define how the combination is done
and what it means, especially with regards to issues mentioned above
(such as event propagation, user interactions or rendering). "Compound
Document by Reference Framework 1.0" defines a generic Compound Document
by Reference Framework (CDRF) that defines a language-independent
processing model for combining arbitrary document formats. "WICD Core
1.0" defines a device independent Compound Document profile based on
XHTML, CSS, and SVG. WICD Core 1.0 is based upon the Compound Document
by Reference Framework 1.0 (CDRF) and serves as a foundation for the
creation of rich multimedia content profiles. The "WICD Full 1.0" profile
is designed to enable rich multimedia content on desktop-type agents.
It may also be appropriate for high capability handheld devices with a
pointing device. In this profile, child documents are embedded by
reference (CDRF). The "WICD Mobile 1.0" profile is designed to enable
rich multimedia content on mobile handset devices, and may also be
appropriate for other handheld devices. WICD Mobile addresses the special
requirements of mass-market, single-handed operated devices and enables
publishers to target these type of devices without having to evaluate
the user agent identification string.
See also: the W3C news item
Open Federation Goodies
Eve Maler, Pushing String Blog
If you read Planet Identity, you've probably already seen the excellent
posts announcing Open Federation, which is the addition of code for
identity federation and identity-based web services to the OpenSSO
project. The OpenSSO project recently announced the availabilty of the
Java source code for the identity federation and web services framework
of the Sun Java System Access Manager and Sun Java System Federation
Manager. The name of this effort is Open Federation. The disjointed
identity phenomenon offers the opportunity to fashion a system for
computer users to link their local identities. With the introduction of
Circle of Trust and identity provider, Identity federation allows the
user to associate, connect or bind the various local identities they
have configured for multiple service providers. The linked local
identities, referred to as a federated identity, then allow the user
to log in to one identity provider site and click through to an
affiliated service provider site without having to re-authenticate
their identity again. The Open Federation framework is provided to
endorse this notion of single sign-on, the implementation supports
several open standard technologies, such as OASIS SAML v1/v2 and Liberty
Alliance Identity Federation Framework, therefore encouraging an
interoperable infrastructure among providers. In particular, industry
standards are implemented by Open Federation include (initially):
(1) Liberty Alliance Project Identity Federation Framework (Liberty
ID-FF) v.1.1 and v.1.2 (including identity provider and service provider
extended profiles) (2) Liberty Alliance Project Identity Web Services
Framework (Liberty ID-WSF) v.1.0 and v.1.1 (3) Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) Security
Assertion Markup Language (SAML) v.1.0 and v.1.1 (4) OASIS SAML v.2.0
(Operational modes: IdP and SP Complete).
See also: the Open Federation architecture
Put the X in Ajax: How to Structure XML for Interactive Web Apps
Kris Hadlock, ComputerWorld
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a popular choice for Ajax, simply
because it is the standard intermediate language that all programming
languages are able to share. It is also supported both on the server
side and client side, which makes it the most flexible solution. XML is
essentially a custom tag-based structure that you, the developer, define.
XML's tag-based structure is similar to that of HTML, except that HTML
has predefined tags that represent its structure, such as the head, the
body, tables and so on. XML can be passed between the front end and the
back end for easy communication of multiple languages. Having this
common language between the front end and the back end is extremely
powerful. It enables us to create direct connections from the GUI to
a server-side language and, ultimately, if desired, a database.
Communicating with XML between the GUI and the front end allows for
complete separation of the two application layers. Separation of the
GUI and the back-end logic is extremely important because it enables
us to have a completely decoupled application in which GUI developers
can work on the front end, while the back-end developers work on the
back end. This keeps specific parts of the application separated for
easier management, and allows teams or individual developers to focus
on the layer that is in need of growth. Not only is this approach ideal
for teams of developers, it is also important for any individual
developer who might be working on every part of the application. With
this structure, an individual developer can focus on specific layers of
the application without interfering or having to make changes to the
adjacent layers.
XML.org is an OASIS Information Channel
sponsored by BEA Systems, Inc., IBM Corporation, Innodata Isogen, SAP AG and Sun
Microsystems, Inc.
Use http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage
to unsubscribe or change an email address. See http://xml.org/xml/news_market.shtml
for the list archives. |
