Fwd: RE: UBL 0p70 comment "c.1" regarding rendering of UBL instances

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

>Delivered-To: gkholman-gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
>From: "Burdett, David" <david.burdett@commerceone.com>
>To: "'G. Ken Holman'" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>,
>    "Burdett, David"
>         <david.burdett@commerceone.com>
>Cc: UBL FPSC <ubl-fpsc@lists.oasis-open.org>,
>    "Probert, Sue"
>         <Sue.Probert@commerceone.com>
>Subject: RE: UBL 0p70 comment "c.1" regarding rendering of UBL instances
>Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 10:23:41 -0700
>X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2656.59)
>
>Ken
>
>I'm not suggesting that there should be only one standard *way* to render 
>a UBL document. I am really suggesting a *mechanism* that allows a creater 
>of a UBL document to make it easy for someone who receives the document to 
>view it in human readable form in the way they intended. Here's my thinking ...
>
>Many businesses care about the way their business documents look and go to 
>a lot of trouble employing graphic artists and designers to make sure that 
>their paper documents present the image they want. What this means for 
>UBL, is that the creater of an XML Document might want to be able to 
>suggest to a recipient that a particular stylesheet be used to view the 
>document that makes the document viewable in the way the creater intended.
>
>So, if the sender of a document wants to associate a stylesheet with a 
>business document, then they need a way of doing it. This is why I 
>suggested adding in an optional stylesheet reference into each UBL 
>document so that that the creater of the document can *suggest* the 
>stylesheet to use to render the document into viewable form.
>
>Note that the reference is just a * suggestion*. The recipient of the UBL 
>document does not HAVE to use the specified stylesheet and can use some 
>other stylesheet if they prefer.
>
>One of the main uses of this idea is by a simple utility that would:
>1. Accept a UBL document as input.
>2. Retrieve the stylesheet reference from the document
>3. Resolve the stylesheet reference into the actual stylesheet (see more 
>on this below)
>4. Pass the UBL document through the stylsheet to create something 
>viewable (e.g as HTML or PDF)
>5. Present the result to the user, e.g. using a browser.
>
>Some of the uses of this utility could be:
>1. By a SME who has no ERP or accounting system, who can view any UBL 
>document they receive, perhaps by email.
>2. To browse archives of UBL documents on an ERP system
>
>Resolving the stylesheet reference is, though, an issue. There a number of 
>ways resolution could be done, for example:
>1. By including the stylesheet together with the UBL document in a 
>multi-part SOAP message using MIME or DIME
>2. By treating the stylesheet reference as a URL so that the stylesheet is 
>retrieved over the web - if you do this then caching the stylesheets 
>retreived could be a good idea.
>
>I think that this might be beyond the scope of this TC.
>
>If you include a digital signature in the document (this was another 
>suggestion of mine) then you can bind the UBL instance and the stylesheet 
>so that you have a verifiable way of checking the authenticity of the way 
>the creater of the UBL document intended it to be viewed.
>
>Finally, I think that including a stylesheet reference in a UBL document 
>HAS to be optional, i.e. a UBL document is valid without one. In this 
>case, I think that having a stylesheet that allows any UBL document of a 
>specific type (i.e. order, invoice, etc) to be viewed is also a good idea.
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>David
>PS I'm not sure if this will go to the FPSC list so can you please forward 
>if necessary


--
Upcoming hands-on courses:   Europe (XSLT/XPath):    May  5, 2003
-                            Europe (XSL-FO):        May 16, 2003
- (XSLT/XPath and/or XSL-FO) North America:      June 16-20, 2003

G. Ken Holman                mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
Crane Softwrights Ltd.         http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/o/
Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0   +1(613)489-0999 (F:-0995)
ISBN 0-13-065196-6                      Definitive XSLT and XPath
ISBN 0-13-140374-5                              Definitive XSL-FO
ISBN 1-894049-08-X  Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath
ISBN 1-894049-10-1              Practical Formatting Using XSL-FO
Male Breast Cancer Awareness http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/o/bc