Alexandre Drolet wrote:
> I have heard a lot of time that one day XML will replace XHTML for Web 
> page development; and that XHTML will not be used anymore.
> Since XHTML is still widely used,do you think that these "sayings" are 
> true ?

The simple answer is "maybe".

First off, XHTML *is* an XML language -- unlike HTML, which was based on 
SGML. And XHTML is indeed intended to be HTML's replacement, according 
to the W3C. So you've already taken the first step.

Second, one of XHTML's advantages is that, as an XML language, it allows 
part of the document to be written in other languages -- SVG, for 
example - distinguished from the XHTML via namespaces. I do believe 
we're going to see increasing amounts of this, since XHTML still has 
most of the warts of HTML and extending into other languages will permit 
more interesting things to be done. So XHTML, if it persists, may wind 
up being not much more than a wrapper.

Third, if you take a look at the new generation of web development -- 
Ajax in particular -- you'll see that increasingly communication between 
the browser and the server is being done in XML, with XHTML used 
essentially as a rendering/interaction language rather than being the 
basis of the website's design. Even when normal (X)HTML is being served 
out, the servers are often based firmly on XML processing, and are just 
using stylesheets to translate that into (X)HTML for interaction with 
the user.

> If yes, do you know a WYSIWYG web page editor than can generate XML + 
> XSL code instead of generating HTML + CSS code ?

You're crossing two semi-compatable concepts there. XSL is a lot richer 
than HTML-plus-CSS. That richness means it can do things that the 
HTML-plus-CSS version can't do without scripting. But for that very 
reason, WYSIWYG is really not the right metaphor for editing it. (Think 
about what happens if the stylesheet says "Don't show me the purchase 
order if it's empty", and you empty it -- in a WYSIWYG system, how do 
you then get it back? Similarly, imaging typing into a form which is 
re-sorting itself as you're typing.) What's more commonly done is a 
multi-window solution -- work on the source and the stylesheet, and have 
the resulting rendering displayed in a separate window. For that, you 
don't actually need a particularly fancy tool; push refresh on an 
XSLT-aware browser to see what effect your changes have had.

Since I'm not a WYSIWYG fan generally, I don't have recommendations. I 
know XMetaL, oXygen, and XMLSpy all said they were adding XSLT support 
at one point (though recent posts here suggest XMLSpy's implementation 
may have some bugs?), so you might want to start by checking their status.


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