So rapidly is the World Wide Web Consortium’s extensible markup language (XML) gaining ground that companies are tripping over each other in the rush to declare their support for the standard. The latest to jump on the bandwagon are Open Market Inc and SoftQuad Software Inc. Open Market claims the latest product in its Folio line, LivePublish, takes full advantage of XML. The software stores, indexes and categorizes XML documents, meaning users can search for information through ordinary web browsers. LivePublish also has an index sheet based on extensible style language (XSL), and its makefile and site administrator tools use XML to define and configure the contents of LivePublish sites. Meanwhile, SoftQuad has announced XMetaL, a web authoring tool for both XML and SGML. Features include drag-and-drop management of boilerplate text and support for industry standard interfaces like DOM, CSS, JavaScript and VBScript.
