Deploying XSLT on the Client

Different versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system are released with different versions of MSXML. For this reason, deploying your XSLT solutions based on MSXML 5.0 can be tricky if you are not sure which MSXML processors will be invoked on a client. To ensure that all clients use the same version, use version-dependent ProgIDs from a script or another COM-enabled programming language to link your XSLT style sheets with source XML documents.

One problem associated with deploying XSLT solutions is that MSXML 3.0 and later are not currently available, widely or totally, in Internet Explorer 5.5. (Internet Explorer 5.5 is currently the only XML-enabled Web browser, although that situation is changing.) This limits any client-side XSLT solution to the realm of an intranet, rather than the Internet, until Internet Explorer ships with MSXML 3.0 and later.

Advantages of Transforming on the Client

There are several reasons for having client-side deployment of an XSLT solution. The primary reason is to reuse the client-side caching to avoid downloading the same documents repeatedly. For example, you might have several XML documents that use the embedding method to link to the same XSLT style sheet. With client-side caching, the style sheet is downloaded once and only once. The next downloaded XML document will use the cached version of the style sheet. This helps to reduce download time.

While server-dominated systems have a limited ability to save state, session states can be maintained on the client with the help of client-side scripting. This makes your applications easier for Windows users to use. You can also take advantage of capabilities that come with more sophisticated browsers, such as Internet Explorer 5.5: behaviors, drag and drop interactions, DHTML, ActiveX controls, and more.

Lastly, by using the ServerXMLHTTP component in client-side scripting, you can send XML information directly to the client without forcing a page update. The XMLHTTP component and XSLT are a powerful combination. They allow you to pull in just the information that you need from the server, transform it to a suitable form of output, reduce the bandwidth of information being transmitted, and reduce the loss of context that converting XML into HTML entails.

See Also

Deploying XSLT in Internet Explorer | Deploying XSLT on the Server