Simon Woodside | Saxite, Simon's AxKit/XLST/XML site framework
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Saxite, Simon's AxKit/XLST/XML site framework

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I love XSLT, it's a great language. Why not write a whole site in it? AxKit allows you to do that and more, and it's really easy to set up and has wicked caching. So I wrote a whole site framework and now I'm open-sourcing it for you.

A whole site framework in XSLT? Why bother?

Besides "because I can" you mean? Because it makes it really, really easy to deal with XML content and because it's a fun, easy-to-use language. Also, it's a way for me to make a 100% W3C standards-based site (along with CSS, XHTML, etc.).

At the most basic level Saxite handles a set of content types in XML such as XHTML and DocBook. It also defines two new XML dialects and provides XSLT to turn them into HTML, saxblog and alexandra (a simple forms language). Content passes through a pipeline of XSLT transformation before it finally emerges to the end user. Saxite also defines a processed include mechanism making it possible to build branching XSLT pipelines/trees, so that you can reuse components and mix and match content at every stage of processing.

Some of the features:

  • automatically-generated breadcrumbs and navigation system
  • fully-featured weblog
  • native support for XML formats including DocBook XML
  • easy content embedding including quicktime & flickr photos
  • built-in forms generation from Relax NG schemas (see Alexandra)

And best of all, if you run it on AxKit you get ultimate performance, because everything is automatically cached in a static cache.

And best of all, did I mention it's all written in XSLT?

Copyright © 1996-2007 Simon Woodside. If no license is noted, rights are reserved.

Valid XHTML 1.0 strict? Made with AxKit and Saxite.