Undergraduate Research in Engineering at Rice
Christine Donica, Senior Electrical and Computer Engineering student
Presentation of XML Documents Using CSS, XSL, MathML and Other Languages for the ConneXions Project
with Dr. Don JohnsonI am a member of the Style Team for the Connexions Project, which makes use of cutting edge technologies to allow instructors to customize course content for the web, and helps students visualize the relationships between concepts. The Style Team is responsible for the presentation of XML documents using CSS, XSL, MathML and other languages. This XML notation however, says nothing about the style in which the content should be displayed.
My team is responsible for interpreting the content and presenting it to the readers. To do this we use several different XML related languages such as XHTML, XSLT, and CSS. The main goal for my team to accomplish this summer was putting the XML onto a printed page. This problem was more complicated than pressing the print button on the web browser window because our goal was to print textbooks. And though these books only cost the price of producing them, we were still responsible for a purchasable product. This set a high standard for the quality of our output, and in terms of presentation, a millimeter here or centimeter there did make a large difference.
One of the most difficult things to print professionally is a mathematical equation, and for engineering courses, this is very important. We had to basically choose our approach based on our ability to print math. Aside from a plethora of technical aspects, I learned that solving a problem that hasn't really been thought out is much different from solving a problem that has been hashed and rehashed. We were able to put together a printing scheme from several different sources that worked for us. We were in contact with people from whom we borrowed programs, asking questions and reporting bugs, and also with people who were part of the development of languages we used. We became a part of a community of people who are all interested in seeing these web technologies become an integral part of the future.
Visit the Connexions Project web page at http://cnx.rice.edu/.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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