Thomas,
The technology you are looking for is the core technology of our XML editor
Xopus.

We have built an XML DOM implementation with a live XSL transformation to
HTML. All written in Javascript and XSLT.
Calling DOM methods will update the XML, we will validate changed XML
against an XSD for good measure and rollback the transaction when it is
invalid, then the XSLT will be reapplied automatically and the HTML will be
updated accordingly. See http://xopus.com/demos.html for a demo.

This does meet all your technical requirements, but the technology is not
free. The editor is available under a commercial license, but we're willing
to discuss licensing part of the technology as well.

Best regards,

Laurens van den Oever
CEO, Xopus BV

laurens at xopus.com
http://xopus.com

+31 70 4452345
Waldorpstraat 17G
2521 CA Den Haag
The Netherlands

KvK 27301795

2009/10/8 Thomas Lord <lord@e...>

> I am looking for a piece of software that I've
> come to suspect doesn't exist - but I thought
> I'd ask here as one way to double check.
>
> We are used to the idea of browsers receiving
> XML, retrieving a linked XSLT program, and applying
> that program to produce an HTML DOM for display.
>
> I am wishing for taking that one step further.
> I would like a client-side XSLT implementation
> that does that transform, but that also keeps around
> the XML.   I would like Javascript programs to be
> able to modify the XML DOM objects and to have those
> changes *incrementally* reflected in updates to
> the HTML DOM.
>
> I know that for arbitrary XSLT, such incremental
> transforms can not always be fast.   For example,
> it is trivial to write an XSLT program such that a
> single character change to a text datum in the XML
> causes the HTML to have to be completely regenerated
> from scratch.
>
> I do hope for a solution where it is easy to write
> a wide range of XSLT programs that *can* be updated
> fast, incrementally.   That is to say: I want good
> performance in the easy cases and don't care so much
> how the hard cases are handled.
>
> I would prefer XSLT but I suppose it is not essential.
> Something similar but non-standard is OK, if that's all
> there is.
>
> Why do I want this?  Well:
>
> I would like to build a system that roughly follows
> a "model-view-controller" pattern.   The XML will
> serve as model.   The HTML and some event handling hooks
> will serve as view.  The main logic of an application
> are the commands (in Javascript) that the view can
> trigger and which operate by having side effects on
> the XML (the model) - that "command system" of the
> application is the controller.
>
> Is there such a piece of software around (that is
> licensed as free software)?  My impression is that
> there is not - which I find somewhat surprising.
>
> Finally, one person I mentioned this to admonished me
> that I was proposing to use XSLT and Javascript in ways
> they were never intended for and were ill suited for.
> I could not get a clear sense from him of *why* he
> thought so, but that is what he said.  Is he right?
>
> Thanks,
> -t
>
>
>
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