CCEL

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CCEL XML

• A Match Made In
• (Ethereal) Heaven

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The CCEL

• The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• Online library of electronic texts

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The CCEL

• The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• Online library of electronic texts
• Different applications require different formats

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The CCEL

• The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• Online library of electronic texts
• Different applications require different formats
• Which format is authoritative?

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The CCEL

• The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• Online library of electronic texts
• Different applications require different formats
• Which format is authoritative?
• ThML (Theological Markup Language)
• XML application
• Master version of most (someday all) texts on
  ccel.org

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ThML

• Defined as an XML application several years ago
• Perl scripts and other hacks used to transform
  ThML into HTML (and other formats) for
  presentation on site
• Static transformation
• Error prone
• Difficult to maintain

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ThML

• Defined as an XML application several years ago
• Perl scripts and other hacks used to transform
  ThML into HTML (and other formats) for
  presentation on site
• Static transformation
• Error prone
• Difficult to maintain
• Isnt there a better way?

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XSLT

• XML Stylesheet Language Transformations
• Stylesheets written in XML that explain to a
  piece of software called a transformer how to
  change an XML document into a different format
  (XML or other)
• Example Client-side transformations with
  Internet Explorer 6

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XSLT on the CCEL

• Summer of 2001
• Two students (myself and Jimmy Osborn) wrote XSLT
  stylesheets that duplicated the functionality of
  the Perl script transformations
• From users perspective, the XSLT-transformed
  docs look no different from the Perl-transformed
  docs
• From developers perspective, there is now only
  one file for every text in the library (the ThML
  file), all other formats are generated on-the-fly
  at the users request

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XSLT on the CCEL

• Summer of 2001
• Two students (myself and Jimmy Osborn) wrote XSLT
  stylesheets that duplicated the functionality of
  the Perl script transformations
• From users perspective, the XSLT-transformed
  docs look no different from the Perl-transformed
  docs
• From developers perspective, there is now only
  one file for every text in the library (the ThML
  file), all other formats are generated on-the-fly
  at the users request
• How does this work?
• Client-side transformations are not powerful
  enough for our purposes
• We needed a more powerful, server-side transformer

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• Apache Cocoon
• Java webapp (webapps are servlets with an
  attitude)
• Runs inside a Java servlet engine (e.g. Apache
  Tomcat), which is then connected to a web server
• Not just a transformer, but an XML Publishing
  Framework
• Brings together of host of different XML
  technologies for the purpose of publishing XML
  docs online
• Does XSLT transformations, XSL-FO to PDF
  conversion, renders SVG graphics, executes
  eXtensible Server Pages (XSP), integrates with
  databases, washes your dog and more

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• Sitemap
• The sitemap is where Cocoon really shows that it
  is more than just a kludge of XML-processing
  programs
• Using regexp matching (or simple wildcard, if
  youre into that sort of thing), it maps URLs to
  an XML document, a stylesheet, and a transformer
  (and a few other things I wont get into here)
• Based on the URL, you can match any XML source
  doc with any XSLT stylesheet and then send the
  result through any transformer you like!

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CCEL Sitemap
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CCEL Sitemap

• New Problem People browsing online dont want
  the whole text in one big HTML file
• Cocoons sitemap helps us here too

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CCEL Sitemap

• New Problem People browsing online dont want
  the whole text in one big HTML file
• Cocoons sitemap helps us here too

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Current Status

• Still in beta stage
• This new system still has a few bugs, but it will
  be going online in a preliminary form very soon

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Current Status

• Still in beta stage
• This new system still has a few bugs, but it will
  be going online in a preliminary form very soon
• As more and more documents are converted to
  well-formed ThML, they can be used by Cocoon and
  we will hopefully phase out the old system over
  time
• There are SO many documents on the CCEL, this may
  take some time

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Current Status

• New Server
• Our new Dell PowerEdge 2500 server runs Cocoon
  (being a Java app, its not the most efficient
  user of system resources)

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Current Status

• New Server
• Our new Dell PowerEdge 2500 server runs Cocoon
  (being a Java app, its not the most efficient
  user of system resources)
• We are currently in the process of moving the
  entire site over to the PowerEdge
• When this is complete, the new XML-based system
  will be available for people to try out

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Current Status

• New Server
• Our new Dell PowerEdge 2500 server runs Cocoon
  (being a Java app, its not the most efficient
  user of system resources)
• We are currently in the process of moving the
  entire site over to the PowerEdge
• When this is complete, the new XML-based system
  will be available for people to try out
• Some examples from the new site