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It would be kind of nice if HTML had something where you can make a remote fetch request for JSON or XML data and get it formatted in some CSS-defined way, with

It would be kind of nice if HTML had something where you can make a remote fetch request for JSON or XML data and get it formatted in some CSS-defined way, without Javascript.

apimade 1y ago
Why not just expose an HTML representation of the data? Why must it remain JSON, XML, CSV, Parquet, fixed length or tab delimited files, ProtoBuf, etc? API’s should provide content in the format asked of them. CSS should be used to style that content. This is largely solved in RFC-6838 which is about “how media types, representation and the interoperability problem is solved”. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc6838/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc6838/ Already supported by .NET Web APIs, Django, Spring, Node, Laravel, RoR, etc. Less mature ecosystems like Golang have solutions, they’re just very much patch-work/RYO. Or even use OpenResty or njs in Nginx, which puts the transformation in the web service layer and not the web application layer. So your data might be JSON blob, it’ll convert to HTML in real-time. Something similar can be achieved elsewhere like Apache using mod_lua etc. I think bastardising one format (HTML), to support another format (JSON), is probably not the right move. We’ve already done that with stuff like media queries which have been abused for fingerprinting, or “has” CSS selectors for shitty layout hacks by devs who refuse to fix the underlying structure.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  Because so you can separate the data from the layout. You can e.g. return a list of strings and then the strings become the summaries of a set of details elements.
  - apimade 1y ago
    The description you give inherently changes the structure of the data, and JavaScript would be the best way to post-process it. CSS is about styling the structure of HTML, not structural changes to it. Unless you have a good example, I think you’re coming at this from an “everything’s a nail if the only tool I have is a hammer”.
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      CSS if for styling of semantic structure of HTML, XSLT is a language to convert normalized data to semantic structure. That's what I gave an explanation about, I wasn't talking about CSS.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  Rather than adding an HTML endpoint in addition to the XML or JSON, expose the data and link it to stylesheets that dynamically render the HTML client side. That's the whole point of XSLT, ship the data and tell the browser how to transform it to HTML.
bawolff 1y ago
They are only getting rid of xslt. You can still use <?xml-stylesheet with CSS
- rhdunn 1y ago
  CSS based views of XML are somewhat useful, but are limited in what they can do. Especially things like setting the HTML title, generating a table of contents, or transforming data like dates and times.
  - bawolff 1y ago
    Sure, but the parent literally was asking for xml styled with css.

It would be kind of nice if HTML had something where you can make a remote fetch request for JSON or XML data and get it formatted in some CSS-defined way, without Javascript.

apimade 1y ago

Why not just expose an HTML representation of the data? Why must it remain JSON, XML, CSV, Parquet, fixed length or tab delimited files, ProtoBuf, etc? API’s should provide content in the format asked of them. CSS should be used to style that content. This is largely solved in RFC-6838 which is about “how media types, representation and the interoperability problem is solved”. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc6838/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc6838/ Already supported by .NET Web APIs, Django, Spring, Node, Laravel, RoR, etc. Less mature ecosystems like Golang have solutions, they’re just very much patch-work/RYO. Or even use OpenResty or njs in Nginx, which puts the transformation in the web service layer and not the web application layer. So your data might be JSON blob, it’ll convert to HTML in real-time. Something similar can be achieved elsewhere like Apache using mod_lua etc. I think bastardising one format (HTML), to support another format (JSON), is probably not the right move. We’ve already done that with stuff like media queries which have been abused for fingerprinting, or “has” CSS selectors for shitty layout hacks by devs who refuse to fix the underlying structure.

1718627440 1y ago
Because so you can separate the data from the layout. You can e.g. return a list of strings and then the strings become the summaries of a set of details elements.
- apimade 1y ago
  The description you give inherently changes the structure of the data, and JavaScript would be the best way to post-process it. CSS is about styling the structure of HTML, not structural changes to it. Unless you have a good example, I think you’re coming at this from an “everything’s a nail if the only tool I have is a hammer”.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    CSS if for styling of semantic structure of HTML, XSLT is a language to convert normalized data to semantic structure. That's what I gave an explanation about, I wasn't talking about CSS.
_heimdall 1y ago
Rather than adding an HTML endpoint in addition to the XML or JSON, expose the data and link it to stylesheets that dynamically render the HTML client side. That's the whole point of XSLT, ship the data and tell the browser how to transform it to HTML.

bawolff 1y ago

They are only getting rid of xslt. You can still use <?xml-stylesheet with CSS

rhdunn 1y ago
CSS based views of XML are somewhat useful, but are limited in what they can do. Especially things like setting the HTML title, generating a table of contents, or transforming data like dates and times.
- bawolff 1y ago
  Sure, but the parent literally was asking for xml styled with css.