|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
[September 27, 2001] A technology standards project sponsored by the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) is developing XML DTDs and schemas to support electronic business document exchange within the convenience store industry. Several pilot projects have been started to test the NAXML specifications for lottery systems, fuel sales, food service transactions, and other retail activities. Version 3.1 of a guidelines document has been produced through the work of the NACS Point of Sale Back Office Task Force: NACS POS/Back Office Interface Guidelines. Common Data Elements and XML Data Interchange. The specification "addresses concerns expressed by the retail community related to the ability to pick back office solutions independently of POS solutions and yet have the two exchange data in an efficient electronic manner. Since early in the standards meetings sponsored by NACS, there has been retailer input and direction regarding their interest in BO/POS integration..." Sample XML DTDs and schemas are available from the web sites. The NACS standards development project is designed to "allow retailers, suppliers, and solution providers to seamlessly exchange financial settlement, ordering, invoicing, and accounting information. The working committees are formalizing models for a range of electronic transactions on general merchandise and supplies, motor fuels, lottery invoicing, and product activity, including general invoicing, purchase orders, credit card reconciliation, electronic fund transfer settlement, and payment remittance." NACS is an international trade association representing 2,300 retail and 1,700 supplier company members. [Full context] [September 27, 2001] Adobe Systems has announced the immediate availability of an SDK for the XML-based Job Definition Format (JDF). From the announcement: Adobe is releasing "the first software development kit for the Job Definition Format (JDF), an Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based specification used to capture, manage and communicate job ticket information throughout a business process or printing workflow. Operating within the standards of the International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP/4), the Adobe JDF Software Developer Kit (SDK) is a development toolkit designed to simplify and standardize the development of JDF-compatible workflow solutions for developers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The Adobe JDF SDK is used by OEMs and independent software vendors (ISVs) to speed implementation of Internet and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)-based workflow systems, services and solutions. Based on XML, the toolkit will enable developers to build systems that allow end users to better collaborate and specify print jobs within the context of the job itself. In addition to a more collaborative and efficient workflow, JDF implementations give service providers the added ability to automate production, printing and billing processes." [Full context] [September 24, 2001] Several accounting firms are collaborating on the design of UML models and XML notation for ArapXML, formulated in response to an OMG RFP issued earlier in 2001: Account Receivable - Account Payable AR/AP Facility. Request For Proposal. The Project "includes research, discussion, documenting use cases and requirements, and finally, publishing XML and UML specifications. ArapXML is a pure document format for representing General Ledger data as simply, completely, and efficiently as possible. It contains no security features, method calls, etc. It is equally usable with Java, linux, or COM, or scripting languages. ArapXML enables exchange of transactions based on classic double-entry accounting. It is designed for individuals and companies who use software or services from multiple vendors to conduct business. ArapXML is based on UML models. It consists almost entirely of a subset, or synonyms, of ebXML core component vocabulary. It is interoperable with established e-commerce vocabularies such as EDI. ArapXML applies an objective approach to determine the integration needs of small business and individuals as well as large companies, by reference to accounting history, accounting patterns, and existing software. ArapXML aggregates receivables and payables from multiple systems or BSPs, whenever the decision is made to manage and settle them at a single place. This activity can be performed by the owner using an existing local application, as well as a web-based GL or payments and settlements provider. The ArapXML schema is not biased in favor of web-based accounting ASPs or BSPs. It exports as well as imports." [Full context] [September 24, 2001] Preliminary XML DTDs have been published through the Intuit Developer Network as part of Intuit's effort to open up its APIs to third-party developers. Intuit's QuickBooks Extensible Markup Language (qbXML) is a language "at the core of a new framework that allows electronic exchange, creation and management of accounting and other business data." Following the design maxim 'Never Enter Data Twice (NED2)', Intuit is constructing the XML specification for third-party applications to use to exchange data with QuickBooks. "With qbXML, software developers will be empowered to build specialized vertical applications and horizontal productivity applications that mine, enrich and share this data. Data integration will be supported with both Web applications and Windows desktop applications. A pre-release, open version of QuickBooks has been made available to participants in the QuickBooks SDK Beta program. The next major release of the US version of QuickBooks, QuickBooks 2002, will be accessible through the qbXML API, and is expected to be released in late fall 2001." [Full context] [September 20, 2001] The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum has released version 1.2 of the IFX Specification for review, and welcomes public comment through October 11, 2001. IFX version 1.2 "provides an XML-based communication protocol that enables the exchange of information among financial institutions, financial institutions and their customers, and financial institutions and their service providers. This latest version features a wide range of functions that allow financial institutions and associated service providers to access account information, download credit card statements, transfer funds, process consumer and business payments, enable bill presentment, and improve customer service. The IFX specification supports a broad range of client devices, such as any standard Web browser software, personal computers with personal financial manager (PFM) software, voice response units (VRUs) that provide bank by phone services, automated teller machines (ATMs), consumer handheld devices, or mobile telephones with data capabilities." [Full context] [September 20, 2001] An announcement from CommerceNet and the UN/CEFACT eBusiness Transition Working Group (eBTWG) describes the first meeting of the working group in San Francisco on October 8-12, 2001. During its initial five-day meeting, "eBTWG will continue UN/CEFACT and OASIS' efforts to further the development of XML standards for electronic business. The working group's first order of business is to pinpoint the specific work necessary to advance ebXML development as related to Business Processes, Core Components and eBusiness Architecture. For the opening meeting, eBTWG has identified three working project teams. In the coming weeks, more project teams will be added to the October agenda. The first three project teams will focus on core areas of ebXML development. The project teams include: (1) The Core Components Specifications Project Team, which is charged with producing a consolidated ebXML Core Components Technical Specification that incorporates the material in the ebXML Discovery and Analysis, Naming Convention and Context technical reports. (2) The Business Collaboration Patterns and Monitored Commitments Specification, which will be responsible for defining and showing through example, what businesses can reasonably expect and what the underlying technology must support within a fully compliant ebXML business relationship. (3) The eBusiness Architecture Specification, which will ensure that electronic business initiatives are technically and practically implementable and that the eBusiness architecture meets the requirements of businesses on a global scale." The eBTWG Executives have also announced the approval of an XML Business Document Library (XBDL) Project which "is to provide a migration path for established legacy EDI semantics and associated business process artifact dictionaries containing codes, elements and message semantics to a Standard Library of XML business grammatical components." [Full context] [September 20, 2001] Members of the Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Authoring Group have issued an invitation to preview plans for the ICE 2.0 specification, now under design. The meeting will be held on September 26, 2001 at the Marriott Hotel near the Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA. ICE is "an XML-based communications protocol optimized for managing the regular exchange of content and data among business partners. The first version of the ICE specification was released in 1998 and has enjoyed considerable support. An updated version ICE 1.1 was also released and it too has been incorporated into products produced by companies including Vignette, Kinecta, Interwoven, Oracle, HP, and Active Data Exchange. A reference implementation toolkit for ICE called ICE CUBES is being developed on SourceForge. Some of the current plans for ICE 2.0 include: (1) Exploration of ICE-based syndication as a Web Service; (2) Integration of the latest standards such as XML Schemas, XML Namespaces, UDDI, SOAP, PRISM, and RDF; (3) Elegant metadata implementations including PRISM an RDF; (4) Well-defined protocol extension mechanism; (5) Development of a framework for a public catalog; (6) New transport layers such as HTTP/S, SMTP, NNTP, and WAP." [Full context] [September 19, 2001] A communiqué from Steven Lord (Chair, FpML Interest Rate Product Working Group) announces the release of a version 2.0 Working Draft for the FpML specification. The Financial Products Markup Language (FpML) "is an XML-based protocol enabling e-commerce activities in the field of financial derivatives. The development of the standard, controlled by FpML.org, will ultimately allow the electronic integration of a range of services, from electronic trading and confirmations to portfolio specification for risk analysis. All types of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives will, over time, be incorporated into the standard, although the current focus of FpML Version 2.0 is interest rate derivatives. The FpML IRD Products Working Group has been working complete definitions for the following new products and features: (1) Interest Rate Cap, (2) Interest Rate Floor, (3) Interest Rate Swaption (European, Bermudan and American Styles; Cash and Physical Settlement), (4) Extendible and Cancelable Interest Rate Swap Provisions, (5) Mandatory and Optional Early Termination Provisions for Interest Rate Swaps, and (6) FX Resetable Cross-Currency Swap..." The new "work in progress" FpML Version 2.0 specification extends the standard to include interest rate options (Swaptions, Caps/Floors), and extends the coverage of swaps (FX Resetables, Cancellables, Early Termination Provisions). The developers intend to release a Last Call Working Draft will be published in November 2001, incorporating feedback received in the interim. [Full context] [September 18, 2001] A research project coordinated through the Tokyo Cyber Assist Research Center has developed an XML vocabulary and DTD for linguistic annotation of web documents. The Global Document Annotation Initiative research team has proposed this XML-based tag set to help computing machines "automatically infer the underlying semantic/pragmatic structure of documents. The tag set is being developed so as to be easy to embed into TEI, EAGLES, and HTML vocabularies. The GDA tag set is designed so that the GDA-annotation reduces the ambiguity in mapping a document to a sort of entity-relation graph (or semantic network) representing the underlying semantic structure. The tag set does not directly encode such graphs, though it should be straightforward to encode them with RDF or related tag sets such as DAML. A chief goal of the GDA iniative is to support AI applications such as machine translation, information retrieval, information filtering, data mining, consultation, expert systems, and so on." [Full context] [September 14, 2001] The RosettaNet Consortium has announced the completion of an "official validation for second major release of its implementation framework core specification, which provides the foundational processes and message packaging requirements for supply chain partners to conduct e-business using RosettaNet standards. Validation of version 2.0 of the RosettaNet Implementation Framework (RNIF) provides greater impetus for companies to migrate from RNIF 1.1 to 2.0, and will help prepare them for the future release of RosettaNet products and services designed to measure their own readiness and compliance with RosettaNet standards. RosettaNet Partners who participated in the six-month RNIF 2.0 Validation Program include: IONA, Peregrine Systems, PTC, TIBCO Software, Viacore, Vitria and webMethods. RNIF provides exchange protocols for quick and efficient implementation of RosettaNet PIPs. Through the efforts of RosettaNet's Validation Partners, players active in the B2B space are assured that RNIF 2.0 has been put through its paces and is capable of addressing the implementation requirements of companies within the high technology supply chain. RNIF version 2.0 supports intermediaries such as e-marketplaces and exchanges, accommodates complex multi-document business messages, and contains additional provisions for authenticity, privacy and non-repudiation. The new implementation framework supports complex business messages; companies can now send binary documents with their XML-based RosettaNet business messages." [Full context] [September 14, 2001] Microsoft has announced the development of a BizTalk Server 2000 CIDX Software Development Kit (SDK) which "extends the library of document schemas shipped with BizTalk Server to include support for the documents most commonly requested by chemical industry customers, implementing support for CIDX Chem eStandards. The BizTalk SDK is to provide chemical companies with a powerful solution enabling rapid integration of applications, platforms and businesses within and across organizational boundaries, using the chemical industry's core XML protocols developed by the Chemical Industry Data Exchange (CIDX)." The CIDX eStandards are "uniform standards for data exchange developed specifically for the buying, selling and delivery of chemicals based upon XML and RosettaNet specifications. The RosettaNet components used and applied in the Chem eStandards are the RosettaNet Implementation Framework (RNIF) and general guidelines regarding XML message and common data dictionary design; the Chem eStandards thus leverage the transport, envelope and security aspects of RINF. Chem eStandards DTDs developed so far deal with envelope and security, customer, catalog and RFQ, purchase order, logistics, financials, forecasting, and exchange interactions." According to the Microsoft announcement, the CIDX SDK "provides Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) mapping documents that will enable customers to quickly map from CIDX transactions to SAP intermediate documents. Also included are a sample utility demonstrating an approach for automating the configuration of BizTalk and a step-by-step tutorial explaining how to implement support for a CIDX OrderCreate transaction. A prototype of the CIDX SDK was originally developed by Microsoft Consulting Services for Air Products and Chemicals Inc." The CIDX Standards Development teams are finalizing the Chem eStandards version 2.0.2 for publication. The 1363-page specification for version 2.0 is available online, together with a separate distribution for the forty-seven (47) XML DTDs. [Full context] [September 13, 2001] Members of the W3C XForms Working Group have released a revised working draft of the XForms 1.0 specification. Designed to be "more flexible than previous HTML and XHTML form technologies, the new generation of Web forms called XForms separates purpose, presentation, and data. The current design of Web forms doesn't separate the purpose from the presentation of a form. XForms, in contrast, are comprised of separate sections that describe what the form does, and how the form is to be presented. This allows for flexible presentation options, making it possible for classic XHTML form controls, as well as other form control sets such as WML, to be leveraged. W3C XForms are the response to the public demand for better web forms with richer interactions, and the new design represents the creation of a new platform-independent markup language for online interaction between an XForms Processor and a remote entity. XForms are thus the successor to XHTML forms, and benefit from the lessons learned in the years of HTML forms implementation experience." The current WD is expected to be the last before the publication of a 'last call' Working Draft; it supercedes the previous working draft of 2001-06-08 and "incorporates new material agreed upon at the Amsterdam face to face meeting and ongoing feedback from the general public." Appendix A of the specification contains the W3C XML Schema for XForms. [Full context] [September 13, 2001] A posting from Alexander Falk announces the final production release of the XML Spy 4.0 Suite, "a comprehensive product-line of easy-to-use software tools, facilitating all aspects of XML application development. The XML Spy 4.0 Suite consists of the XML Spy 4.0 Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the XML Spy 4.0 XSLT Designer, and the XML Spy 4.0 Document Editor, a comprehensive tool-set for all XML application development. The XML Spy 4.0 Integrated Development Environment is a solution for developing XML-based applications, making it easy to create and manage XML documents, stylesheets, and schemas. The XSLT Designer is an innovative new approach to automate writing of complex XSLT Stylesheets using an intuitive, drag-and-drop user interface. The XML Spy 4.0 Document Editor is available as a browser plug-in or a stand-alone application; it offers a word-processor style free-flow WYSISYG editor for XML documents, empowering non-technical users to create and edit XML documents." A 30-day evaluation version is available for download. [Full context] [September 13, 2001] A communiqué from Dennis Drescher and Eric Albright (SIL) announces the Level 1 Release of an XML Scripture Encoding Model (XSEM), developed by SIL to replace a "Standard Format Markers (SFM)" markup system which has been in use for about 20 years. Whereas the SFM notation reflected an essentially a flat record/field markup model, XSEM is based substantially upon the TEI DTD and employs a hierarchical model with advanced linking mechanisms. The XSEM markup model is designed as XML, and the application will be deployed with the next generation of editing software and publishing systems in SIL. The XSEM canonical source is "an XML Schema that is compliant with the latest W3C recommendation for the XML Schema standard," but the principal notation used in the distribution is an XML DTD (generated from the Schema source using XSLT). The demonstration materials are available as downloadable packages (.ZIP, .BIN, .HQX, .TGZ formats) and include sample XML text, XML DTDs, documentation, XSLT stylesheets, as well as output in HTML, PDF, EBook, and WML formats. The developers of XSEM have submitted the XML DTD as input to the Open Scriptural Information Standard (OSIS) Initiative, sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the American Bible Society (ABS). [Full context] [September 12, 2001] A call for participation has been issued in connection with a proposed OASIS Technical Committee for a Universal Business Language (UBL). The new Universal Business Language is proposed as "a synthesis of existing XML business document libraries. Work would begin with xCBL 3.0 as the starting point and to develop the standard UBL library by mutually agreed-upon changes to xCBL 3.0 based on industry experience with other XML business libraries and with similar technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange. The TC will endeavor to develop UBL in light of standards/specifications issued by UN/CEFACT, ISO, IEC, ITU, W3C, IETF, OASIS, and such other standards bodies and organizations as the UBL TC may deem relevant. It would harmonize UBL as far as practical with the ebXML specifications approved in Vienna (May 2001), with the work of the Joint Core Components initiative (a joint project of ANSI ASC X12 and the UN/EDIFACT Working Group), and with the work of other appropriate business information bodies. The primary deliverable of the UBL TC is a coordinated set of XML grammatical components that will allow trading partners to unambiguously identify the business documents to be exchanged in a particular business context." The new OASIS TC is to be chaired by Jon Bosak (Sun Microsystems), and is projected to be completed within 1-2 years. [Full context] [September 12, 2001] The W3C XML Linking Working Group has announced the release of XML Pointer Language (XPointer) Version 1.0 as a W3C Candidate Recommendation. The CR replaces the second last-call Working Draft version of January 08, 2001, and is open for public comment through March 4, 2002. XPointer is "built on top of the XML Path Language (XPath), which is an expression language underlying the XSL Transformations (XSLT) language. XPointer's extensions to XPath allow it to: (1) be used in URI references to address into resources; (2) address points and ranges as well as whole nodes; (3) locate information by string matching. XPointer supports addressing into the internal structures of XML documents and external parsed entities. It allows for examination of a document's hierarchical structure and choice of its internal parts based on various properties, such as element types, attribute values, character content, and relative position. In particular, it provides for specific reference to elements, character strings, and other XML information, whether or not they bear an explicit ID attribute. The specification defines XPointer as the language to be used as the basis for a fragment identifier for any URI reference that locates a resource whose Internet media type is one of text/xml, application/xml, text/xml-external-parsed-entity, or application/xml-external-parsed-entity." [Full context] [September 07, 2001] A posting from Henry S. Thompson announces a "first public release of the W3C XML Schema Test Collection, made possible by a substantial contribution of tests from Microsoft. Both positive and negative expected outcomes are tested with respect to a range of core XML Schema features. [The tests are presented] in a standard form which tabulates (without ratifying) the test materials, together with a brief description, and the outcomes for each one expected by the contributor. The document also includes the first of what the W3C team hopes will be many outcome tabulations for a publically available XML Schema processor... the column labelled 'Expected' means the outcome expected by the contributor [not necessarily what's expected by the W3C WG]. For the test file(s) present which has/have extension .xsd, its/their conformance to the XML Schema REC's definition of valid XML representations of XML Schemas is what is at issue. When a test file with extension .xml is present as well, its schema-validity is at issue as well." Thompson reports that the W3C team already has in hand an additional contribution of tests from NIST; these will be added soon to augment the 100+ tests from Microsoft. Contributions from other sources are strongly encouraged. The test materials are available for download from the W3C web site as a single package, distributed under the W3C Document License. [Full context] [September 05, 2001] A research team at the UWA Software Component Laboratory (SCL) is developing a suite of tools in the 'Component Test Bed' to assist component developers "quickly and easily generate and manage test data sets for components." Software tools in the SCL Component Test Bed "allow authors to package and test software subsystems as components which may be sold through the Software Component Server. The CTB may be used by software developers who have no formal training in software testing. It provides a check list that the developer may follow to ensure that a component is thoroughly tested prior to submission to the server. It also creates an XML-based test database, consisting of test patterns which may be bundled with the components that are sold." In support of this work, the team has developed an XML-based test specification that aims to be (1) standard and portable; (2) simple and easy to learn; (3) devoid of language-specific features; (4) equally able to work with object-oriented systems, simple functions, and complex components such as distributed objects or Enterprise JavaBeans; (5) efficient at handling the repetitive nature of many test sets; (6) capable of offering widely available and easily produced test-generation tools that do not require proprietary software; (7) free of proprietary-software requirements for interpreting and running the tests; and (8) able to support regression testing." Sample DTDs and instances from the project are available online, along with design documents and technical reports. [Full context] [September 05, 2001] The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.0 specification as a W3C Recommendation, "representing cross-industry agreement on an XML-based language that allows authors to create two dimensional vector graphics. A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor its widespread adoption." From the W3C announcement: "Web designers have requirements for graphics formats which display well on a range of different devices, screen sizes, and printer resolutions. They need rich graphical capabilities, good internationalization, responsive animation and interactive behavior in a way that takes advantage of the growing XML infrastructure used in e-commerce, publishing, and business to business communication. [SVG brings] the XML advantage to vector graphics and benefits all industries which depend on rich graphics delivery -- advertising, electronic commerce, process control, mapping, financial services, and education. Web designers demand vendor-neutral, cross-platform interoperability. W3C's Extensible Markup Language (XML) has become the universal format for document and data interchange on the Web. SVG 1.0 enables the textual content of graphics -- from logos to diagrams -- to be searched, indexed, and displayed in multiple languages. This is a significant benefit for both accessibility and internationalization. SVG 1.0 builds on other W3C specifications such as the Document Object Model (DOM), which allows for easy server-side generation and dynamic, client-side modification of graphics and text. SVG 1.0 also benefits from W3C technologies such as CSS and XSL style sheets, RDF metadata, XML Linking, and SMIL Animation, which also advanced to Recommendation today." [Full context] [September 04, 2001] A posting from James Clark announces the availability of a DTD converter 'DTDinst' which converts XML DTDs into XML instance format. "The XML instance can be in either a format specific to DTDinst or can be in RELAX NG format." The DTDinst-specific output format is documented in RELAX NG non-XML syntax and in RELAX NG format. The key feature of DTDinst "is its handling of parameter entities: it is able to reliably turn parameter entity declarations and references into a variety of higher-level semantic constructs. It can do this even in the presence of arbitrarily deep nesting of parameter entity references within parameter entity declarations. At the same time, it accurately follows XML 1.0 rules on parameter entity expansion, so that any valid XML 1.0 DTD can be handled. If a parameter entity is used in a way that does not correspond to any of the higher-level semantics constructs supported by DTDinst, then references to that parameter entity will be expanded in the DTDinst output. DTDinst is available as a precompiled JAR file; the source is also available." Clark provides an XSLT stylesheet that "converts DTDinst format to RELAX NG; it has many more limitations than the converter builtin to DTDinst, but it may be useful as a basis for XSLT-based processing of DTDinst format." James writes: "Feedback is welcome, especially on any DTDs it doesn't handle well and on additional features that you would like to see..." [Full context]
More Information on Robin Cover's XML pages at xml.coverpages.org
|
