Converting XML to HTML

Page Index

• Introduction
• The XML File
• The XSL Stylesheet
• Follow the path of the Dena'ina Data

Introduction

This page shows the steps taken to transform the archival aligned stories into an HTML display.

The XML File

A very useful feature of ELAN is that it outputs a file in XML format containing all the information on timecodes, linguistic and tier type definitions, and the actual text. The XML can then be converted to a user-friendly HTML version of the alignment through the use of an XSL stylesheet.

For the Dena'ina project, a few key pieces of information that ELAN does not supply were added to the XML file:

• <DENTITLE> for the Dena'ina title of the story
• <ENGTITLE> for the English title of the story
• <SPEAKER> for the name of the storyteller

The XSL Stylesheet

A stylesheet was written in XSL to convert the information contained in the XML file into HTML. XSL was used to format the page, add graphics, add eye-catching colors, and insert QuickTime plug-ins. QuickTime was selected as the media player for this project because it is free to download, easy to configure, and uses <starttime> and <endtime> elements to play individual lines of audio. This eliminated the need to cut the audio into many individual files.

Follow the path of the Dena'ina Data

1. Get started: Summary of the Dena'ina conversion
2. Digitize audio data: Audio pages (Classroom)
3. Convert characters to Unicode: Conversion page (Classroom)
4. Align text: Interlinearized glossed text pages (classroom)
5. Store data: XML pages (classroom)
6. Render data: Stylesheets pages (classroom)