Release Of First XHTML 1.1 Authoring Tool Smoothes The Way Towards Web Standards
Toronto company releases first XHTML 1.1 WYSIWYG editor
TORONTO - October 7, 2003 - Belus Technology announced today the release of "XStandard", the first commercially available WYSIWYG editor that meets the XHTML 1.1 specification adopted by W3C. XStandard is an ActiveX® control that is typically integrated into content management systems and allows business users to author and format rich content. Though most popular content management solutions include WYSIWYG editors, XStandard is the first to generate XHTML 1.1 markup.
XStandard permits the authoring of multi-lingual content (including Chinese, Russian, etc.), supports layout and data tables, lists, hyperlinks, floats and drag-and-drop. Files can be uploaded and referenced from libraries using Web Services (SOAP).
Authors choose XStandard as a convenient tool for formatting content without programming. Developers choose XStandard because it ensures code generated by content authors contains no deprecated (outdated) markup, is well formed and XHTML 1.1 compliant. XHTML is a leading XML vocabulary designed to standardize the Web's lingua franca (HTML) and to expose data wrapped in HTML code to opportunities for parsing, restructuring and reformatting. By taking the noise out of markup, XHTML 1.1 primes data for re-purposing by the rapidly expanding array of non-desktop devices.
"Most developers today are still wrapping data inside an outdated format - HTML 4," warns Vlad Alexander, head of development at Belus. "This means Web content becomes legacy data practically as soon as it is created, because it cannot be re-purposed. CIOs are seeing evidence of this now as organizations struggle to re-format content generated at great expense over the last decade," he added.
Under pressure from bodies such as W3C, manufacturers are producing browsers that conform to standards. Now developers are being called upon to ensure that the markup generated by content management systems meets the same standards. Earlier WYSIWYG editors fall short of generating XHTML 1.1 code. Most are also native HTML or RTF editors that generate "dirty" code then clean it up afterwards. Tools used for clean-up can themselves generate bad code, or simply suppress formatting tags they do not recognize. By contrast XStandard generates XHTML 1.1 from the ground up.
Instead of using the deprecated style attribute for formatting, XStandard generates semantic-rich markup that references Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) through the class attribute. This means business users no longer apply semantically barren information to data, such as "color" or "font", but select among semantically rich options such as "Heading" or "Product Description" using XStandard's drop-down menu. Business users can also apply custom tags such as "<promotion>" to elements of content (words, phrases, or objects such as images).
"XHTML's ability to attach semantics to raw data in this way far outperforms anything that HTML has ever offered," says Alexander, "and prepares information for parsing by any XML-enabled machine. The complete separation of data from presentation that is made possible by referencing CSS also makes XStandard particularly useful to Government or to any corporation anxious to adhere to common look-and-feel and accessibility guidelines."
"From what we see, XStandard offers interesting opportunities for government," said Charles St-Pierre, Chief of the National Capital Region Web Services Division at Environment Canada, a Belus client involved in beta-testing XStandard. "Non-technical users are increasingly called upon and eager to manage content for which they are responsible, but their contributions need to comply with technical standards they cannot relate to. XStandard promises to make it easier for content contributors to do their job, offering developers peace of mind at the same time."
XStandard also supports accessibility initiatives by requiring authors to provide alt texts and summaries for images and tables. It differentiates between layout and data tables, which are processed differently by screen readers, and incorporates a unique Screen Reader Preview that displays content as screen readers process it, in linear fashion. These features bring accessibility considerations to the forefront of Web authoring and present authors with opportunities to modify content accordingly.
XStandard is available in two versions: XStandard Lite is freeware. XStandard Pro offers more powerful Web Services functionality and is sold by license. XStandard is available for downloading and test-driving at http://www.xstandard.com
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About Belus Technology Inc.
BelusTechnology is a privately held software development company, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Belus produces high-performance products and components based on forward-looking industry standards such as XML, XHTML and Web Services. Belus products can be purchased by license or accessed remotely through ASP services.
Contact
Shelagh Nerney
Belus Technology Inc.
shelagh.nerney@xstandard.com
XStandard is a registered trademark of Belus Technology. ActiveX® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation