<title keywords="xsl,xslt,xml,jsp,resin,caucho,template">
XML Template Pages Introduction</title>
<summarylist/>

<p>XTP (XML Template Pages) creates web pages from XML using XSL
stylesheets.

<p>The documentation for the specific tags is in the <a href='xsl.xtp'>XSL
stylesheet</a> section.  This section describes how XTP works.

<p>XTP lets web designers create active pages
without changing the original text.  It uses a separate <a
href='xsl.xtp'>XSL</a> stylesheet to transform the original document
into a fancy formatted document.  Because the active stylesheet is
separate from the passive content, XTP gives designers a tighter
focus.  When worrying about style, designers can concentrate on the
stylesheet.  When concentrating on content, designers can focus on the
text.

<p>XTP makes the input file simpler: it can be plain old HTML.  It
separates the content (*.xtp) from the style (*.xsl).  The tradeoff
is that XSL stylesheets are slightly more complicated than JSP active
pages.  For JSP, scripts execute exactly where they're placed.
XTP has to match HTML to script fragments using patterns.

<p>XTP works by matching stylesheet patterns to the input HTML,
creating the result HTML following the pattern actions.
XTP analyzing the input HTML into a structured HTML tree
using the XML document object model.  For
each node, it finds the best pattern in the XSL and applies the
action.  The action prints to the output HTML.

<section name=blank title='Blank Stylesheet Example'>

In this example, we're using a blank stylesheet.  Even with a blank
stylesheet, <resin/> does something useful: it prints out all text,
removing the tags.

<example title='hello.xtp'>
&lt;TITLE&gt;Hello, world&lt;/TITLE&gt;

&lt;H1&gt;Hi, World!&lt;/H1&gt;

&lt;P&gt;The hello, world example is simple.
</example>

<p><resin/> first reads in the XTP file, parsing it like an HTML
file.  It adds optional tags, like &lt;html&gt; and &lt;/p&gt; and
forces all HTML tags to be lower case.

<example title='hello$9342.dom'>
&lt;html&gt;
  &lt;head&gt;
    &lt;title&gt;Hello, world&lt;/title&gt;
  &lt;/head&gt;

  &lt;body&gt;
    &lt;h1&gt;Hi, World!&lt;/h1&gt;

    &lt;p&gt;The hello, world example is simple.&lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;
</example>

<p>Next, <resin/> starts its matching process at the top.  Since the stylesheet
is empty, it uses the default rules.  The default rules say: process
an element's children and print a text node's data.

<box class='green'>
<ol>
<li>#document, process children
 <ol>
 <li>&lt;html&gt;, process children
  <ol>
  <li>&lt;head&gt;, process children
   <ol>
   <li>&lt;title&gt;, process children
    <ol>
    <li>"Hello, world", print to output
    </ol>
   </ol>
  <li>&lt;body&gt;, process children
   <ol>
   <li>&lt;h1&gt;, process children
    <ol>
    <li>"Hi, World!", print to output
    </ol>
   <li>&lt;p&gt;, process children
    <ol>
    <li>"The hello, ...", print to output
    </ol>
   </ol>
  </ol>
 </ol>
</ol>
</box>

<example title='hello$9342.html'>
Hello, world

Hi, World!
The hello, world example is simple.
</example>

</section>

<section name=page title='Simple Page Template'>

<resin/>'s XTP can create standard page layout: common backgrounds,
navigation, headers and footers.  This is a common use for any of the
active content creation tools.

<p>This example adds two things to the default stylesheet.  All
elements are copied instead of ignored, and the body of the HTML gets
a background and a margin.

<p>Copying elements is easy.  The copy template matches all elements
<code/match='*'/>.  When <resin/> processes a node whose pattern
matches nothing else, it will execute the copy action.  The action
copies the element (<code/xsl:copy/>) and processes the
children (<code/xsl:apply-templates/>).

<example>
&lt;xsl:template match='*|@*'&gt;
  &lt;xsl:copy&gt;
    &lt;xsl:apply-templates select='@*|*'/&gt;
  &lt;/xsl:copy&gt;
&lt;/xsl:template&gt;
</example>

<p>For the page template pattern, we use <code/match='/html/body'/>.
<resin/> will execute the template in place of the body.

<example>
&lt;xsl:template match='/html/body'&gt;
<eg-em>
  &lt;!-- cyan background --&gt;
  &lt;body bgcolor='cyan'&gt;

  &lt;table width='100%'&gt;

  &lt;!-- left margin --&gt;
  &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td width='240'&gt;&lt;/td&gt;

  &lt;!-- center column --&gt;
  &lt;td width='80%'&gt;

  &lt;!-- insert body contents --&gt;
</eg-em>

  &lt;xsl:apply-templates/&gt;

<eg-em>
  &lt;!-- copyright footer --&gt;
  &lt;hr&gt;
  Copyright &amp;copy; 1999 Caucho Technology

  &lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  &lt;/table&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
</eg-em>
&lt;/xsl:template&gt;
</example>

<p>The translation follows the same order as in the blank stylesheet
example.  The body rule is used for the body and the copy rule
is used for every other tag.

<example>
<example>
&lt;TITLE&gt;Hello, world&lt;/TITLE&gt;

&lt;H1&gt;Hi, World!&lt;/H1&gt;

&lt;P&gt;The hello, world example is simple.
</example>
<results>
&lt;html&gt;
  &lt;head&gt;
    &lt;title&gt;Hello, world&lt;/title&gt;
  &lt;/head&gt;

  &lt;body bgcolor='cyan'&gt;

  &lt;table width='100%'&gt;
  &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td width='240'&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
  &lt;td width='80%'&gt;

    &lt;h1&gt;Hi, World!&lt;/h1&gt;

   &lt;p&gt;The hello, world example is simple.
   &lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;hr&gt;
  Copyright &amp;copy; 1999 Caucho Technology

  &lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  &lt;/table&gt;
  &lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;
</results>
</example>

</section>
