Thread

Let me first say this is purely curiousity on my part, and I like the EE template methodology (for the most part).

But in my research, finally ending up on EE, i noticed that almost no blog/cms packages use XSL and serverside transformation as a template system. Why not? It’s standardized, so someone like me would have had ZERO learning curve, or at least almost zero except for the EE specific features.

Thoughts?

i’m no expert and have only dabbled with it while playing while playing with symphony cms which uses the xslt. there’s no doubt that it’s quite capable and powerful, however, it’s not for the faint of heart as there’s quite a steep learning curve—at least for me. we used to have a developer around these parts that actually worked on the team that developed the spec named joe lapp. in conversations with him, i recall that he wasn’t to found of what xsl became.

i guess that makes sense. I personally find it excellent and flexible, especially with the php function calls you can do from within it. although I imagine it wouldnt be possible in EE, because it would be a fundamental change in the output engine, it would be nice to have the option to do templates in xsl. not gonna happen tho.

i guess that makes sense. I personally find it excellent and flexible, especially with the php function calls you can do from within it. although I imagine it wouldnt be possible in EE, because it would be a fundamental change in the output engine, it would be nice to have the option to do templates in xsl. not gonna happen tho.

I think templating with XSL, though powerful, would limit the audience and consumer base for ExpressionEngine.  Even though it can be learned, it wouldn’t appeal to many.  Why learn a new language to use ExpressionEngine, when there are other CMS systems (free ones no less) where I only need to know HTML and CSS (if that).

Right now, all one needs to know is HTML and CSS.  This means that everyone on my team can alter templates.  In the past, I was stuck doing a lot of the back-end templating changes as the main developer for my firm.  So, the entry level is for a non-developer.  Using XSL would raise it to more technical people.

That might be the fundamental reason why it’s not implemented—not only in EE, but in other CMS apps as well.

seeing how ee 2.0 will be built on codeigniter, integrating another templating system should be feasible. but what the hell do i know. not much i can tell you. not much at all.

From my experience with XSL and XSLT, it’s inherently limited and can get quite complex as you try to do fancy-dancy things.  There are only so many xsl:otherwises one can do before it drives you absolutely crazy.  There are also some security issues that you’ll run in to as well.