[DAS2] Fwd: can't view XML from DAS2 server in IE4 or Safari

[Steve Chervitz]

I agree it is very useful to view XML documents, even though das xml is
intended for applications. For whatever reason, some humans (myself
included) seem to have a fascination with XML and like to view it, so it
makes sense to provide for this.

As for viewing das2xml data directly by clicking on das2 server links in
Firefox, I have no problem. When you first click on a link returning das2xml
formatted data (mime type=application/x-das-*+xml), Firefox should provide a
dialog box asking what you want to do with it. Click "open with" and select
Firefox itself. Do this for each of the types of das documents and you'll be
set. Btw, there are a bunch of different das2xml links available here for
testing: http://netaffxdas.affymetrix.com/das2/

If you have already specified that Firefox should save the das2xml data to
disk, you should be able to change your preference by going to Preferences
-> Downloads -> View & Edit Actions...  (this is on OS X with Firefox
1.5.0.6. I don't see any entries for application/x-das* entries in mine; not
sure why not, but it's working now, so I don't worry).

According to the following article, Firefox will use its default xml handler
for any mime type matching application/*+xml  (see 'Types of XML' on this
page):

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-ffox2/index.html

While we're on the subject, there's another recent article in this series on
manipulating XML with javascript in Firefox. Might be interesting to try
some of these ideas with das2xml data:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-ffox3/

Steve

> From: Ann Loraine <aloraine at gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:08:43 -0700
> To: Andrew Dalke <dalke at dalkescientific.com>
> Cc: DAS/2 <das2 at lists.open-bio.org>
> Subject: Re: [DAS2] Fwd: can't view XML from DAS2 server in IE4 or Safari
> 
> Hi Andrew,
>
> This sounds great to me!
> 
> Being able to use my Web browser to show people DAS XML after typing
> in a URL (teaching) and also to see it myself as I familiarize myself with
> the URL-building conventions (coding) is a huge plus. It really gets
> the point across in an accesible and dramatic way.
> 
> A lot of us started to "get" programming after having friends or
> colleagues show us the HTML coding underlying Web pages using the
> "view source" function of Netscape Navigator. I think being able to
> see the XML beautifully rendered in a browser can have the same sort
> of function for a lot of people and will help them understand the
> concept of structured data, the meaning of machine-readable, and good
> stuff like that.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Ann
> 
> On 8/15/06, Andrew Dalke <dalke at dalkescientific.com> wrote:
>> Oops!  Hit "reply-to" instead of "reply-all".
>> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>>> From: Andrew Dalke <dalke at dalkescientific.com>
>>> Date: August 15, 2006 5:26:03 AM GMT+02:00
>>> To: "Ann Loraine" <aloraine at gmail.com>
>>> Subject: Re: can't view XML from DAS2 server in IE4 or Safari
>>> 
>>>> I'm trying to view the XML delivered from the DAS2 server in Firefox
>>>> or IE4 without having to save it and then load it.
>>>> 
>>>> I think this is something to do with the  fact that the XML is
>>>> delivered as type application versus XML plain text, which is what the
>>>> DAS1 servers seem to do.
>>> 
>>> Yes.  It's a 4 year old bug in Mozilla.
>>>    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=155730
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Is there a way I can tell Firefox to render the XML directly without
>>>> my having to save it first?
>>> 
>>> We've run into this before.  I want a way to make this be less
>>> of a problem.
>>> 
>>> I propose that if "text/xml" is in the Accept header then the
>>> server should return the das2xml document but with a "text/xml"
>>> content-type.
>>> 
>>> I tested that out on my copy of Firefox and it was a happy camper.
>>> It showed the XML tree, though it did complain about the lack
>>> of a stylesheet.  Okay, perhaps it was more feeling okay than happy..
>>> 
>>> Of course another possibility is to see the "text/html" there
>>> and show something more presentable to humans, but that makes things
>>> worse for those like Ann who want to see the XML structure.
>> 
>>                                         Andrew
>>                                         dalke at dalkescientific.com
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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>> DAS2 at lists.open-bio.org
>> http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/das2
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ann Loraine
> Assistant Professor
> Section on Statistical Genetics
> University of Alabama at Birmingham
> http://www.ssg.uab.edu
> http://www.transvar.org
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