Browsers and XML vs "Back/Forward" buttons

[Don Bruey <dbruey at CreativeSolutions dot com>]

Given    Data.xml and Data.xsl, in IE5.5 with MSXML3 (thanks to help from
this list)

I have two "views" on Data.xml that I would like to present to the user upon
demand, call them "summary" and "detail".  The user starts in summary.
Depending on what hyperlinks they choose, they could request to see this
same data in detail mode.  The pages are set up such that you can't get to
the detail without first going through another page, and requesting the
detail page will write a new "detail" Data.xsl file, so that when the
data.xml file is loaded into the browser, it is transformed to detail. (how
this data.xsl writing works isn't important, it just works)


Something like this:

Data.xml w/ Data.xsl (summary)   --> hyperlink -->  (0 or more other
page(s)) --> hyperlink --> Data.xml w/ Data.xsl (detail)

No problem if you go from summary to detail.  The problem is that, you
guessed it, using the browser back button, you can move to the original
(summary) view any time you want, and since Data.xsl is now the "detail"
version, you will move back to the summary view but see the detail view.  

This sort of touches on the "conditional" include of certain xsl files,
which has been a topic of conversation here recently, I think takes it a
step further since one of the strong points of XML is the ability to show
whatever view on the data you want via transformations, but this situation
will easily get you into trouble.   I've been watching these messages and I
don't remember anything coming up that specifically addressed this issues.  

Anyone have comments on this?   

Don Bruey
Lead Software Developer	
Creative Solutions




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