What I need from XML

Hi Folks,

Glad to finally see this list come to life.  I'm usually a lurker and
spend more time learning from these lists than participating because of my
lack of knowledge and eloquence.  But this one seems to need an infusion
so perhaps I can offer at least a bit of stimuli.

I'll try to describe what it is I'm looking for in XML.

My husband and I have a collection of antique arms and armour and I am in
the process of redesigning our website.  Ideally I would like to be able
to simply create a database (XML?) that would hold the various elements of
each piece (name, circa date, category, maker, measurements, description,
etc.)  

I would then like to offer this information in different formats for
different web browsers and even a basic text version (for printing
perhaps?).  To create this in HTML in all the different styles that would
optimize the viewer's experience depending on their browser, would take a
lifetime to create and then maintain after it's done.  We are constantly
adding new items and I have been known to make mistakes from time to time
;-) so I'd like to only have to change the database and all the pages that
reference it would also change.

If I can have the visitor choose their browser when they come into the
site (or set up a CGI script to detect that) and then steer them to the
correct directory, I would like to set up a series of pages that would
access 1 database but display the information in different styles. 

I've studied the basic elements of XML and I think it may be the answer
but have yet to learn how I can put the different sites together once the
database is created.

I hope I've described my problem clearly enough.  I look forward to
hearing your responses.

Warmest regards,
Catharina Hogarth,

Hogarth House Museum,
http://www.hogarth.com/

HWG hwg-xml mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters