Markup Languages Support for Content Management of
Agricultural Portals
Jan Masner1, Jiří Vaněk2, Jan Jarolímek2, Vladimír Očenášek2
1
Department of Information Technologies, Czech University of Life Sciences, Czech Republic,
e-mail: masner@pef.czu.cz
2
Department of Information Technologies, Czech University of Life Sciences, Czech Republic
Abstract. Within a wider research, the Department of Information
Technologies of CULS Prague works on a project, which deals with
methodology for creation, updates, store and presentation of information
content in the WWW environment. This paper provides analysis of markup
languages and discusses other proposals for the future research and
development. The results of this study indicate that the HTML5 language
should be used as a main carrier. An abstract envelope (using XML, JSON or
both) should be defined to keep information content in blocks to allow
portability, communication with CMS, mobile devices or other applications.
Keywords: HTML, WWW, CMS, Information content, WYSYWIG.
1 Introduction
Internet and the World Wide Web environment have rapidly spread over the
population during past years. Number of web pages and portals is still growing.
Recently, there are more than 1.2 billion of web pages online (Internet Live Stats,
2014). The past decade has seen the rapid departure from classical printed media
(newspapers, magazines). At the same time, the number of online media and portals
grows. Establishing and managing of such websites is becoming easier. These trends
are expected for the future to be more significant. The online publication and online
content brings many opportunities (Das et. Al, 2009).
Due to a development of internet technologies, especially content management
systems, even users without knowledge of desired technologies (HTML, CSS) can
manage the online content (Brown, 2014). This usually means creation of posts like
articles, news, interviews, etc. The main part of the content creation utilizes
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors. Other tools of content
management systems and content parts are connected in addition (photographs, links
to related content, external links and attachments in general). WYSIWYG editors
allow users to work with the content without knowledge of the desired technologies
the same way like any text processors do. However, this suffers from many
limitations.
Due to a lack of knowledge of HTML and connected CSS, the work with
advanced features (such as floating property) is difficult. WYSIWYG editors and
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tools are not perfect and can lead to problems with inconsistency of output. These
issues need to be solved programmatically then (Spiesser and Kitchen, 2004). Digital
form of online media and content offers an undiscovered potential of opportunities.
The textual content can be extended by various components such as images with
description, galleries, links, maps and interactive objects in general etc.
There is a need for analysis of the content storage form. Recent content
management systems uses various types of WYSIWYG editors, which can be
extended by additional elements. There are many modern technologies for content
sharing, searching and classification such as semantic web, metadata description (e.g.
AGROVOC), sharing (e.g. OAI-PMH), Internet of Things and cooperation with
mobile devices (Šimek et. al, 2013; Šimek, Stočes and Vaněk, 2014).
Within a wider research, the Department of Information Technologies of CULS
Prague works on a project that deals with methodology for creation, updates, store
and presentation of information content in the WWW environment. The methodology
should cover modern trends in the informatics area such as usability, User
eXperience (UX), Internet of Things (IoT), connection with applications for mobile
devices, etc. Finally, it should be generalizable and usable for various types of
contents in different areas. Regarding the agrarian sector where IT technologies
penetration and knowledge of desired technologies is at a lower level, the importance
of the research topic is significant.
The objective of this paper are to determine whether the HTML5 language is
optimal to be used in the target methodology. In addition, the study analyses other
initial aspects for the research project.
2 Materials and Methods
The following section deals with the analysis of the Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) and its changes during the specifications development. The main objective
is to determine, what are the most important changes regarding the information
content and what changes are expected for the future. Additionally an overview of
content management systems is presented as well.
Tim Berners-Lee formed the HTML in CERN (the European Laboratory for
Particle Physics in Geneva) laboratories in 1989. The basic idea was to allow an
efficient organisation and availability of scientific documents from remote places.
However, instead of making the documents simply available to download, they
should have been linked together by hypertext links. Design of the language was
based on SGML standard (ISO 8879:1986 Information processing - Text and office
systems - Standard Generalized Markup Language). As Ragget (1998) writes: ‘The
SGML elements used in Tim's HTML included P (paragraph); H1 through H6
(heading level 1 through heading level 6); OL (ordered lists); UL (unordered lists);
LI (list items) and various others. What SGML does not include, of course, are
hypertext links: the idea of using the anchor element with the HREF attribute was
purely Tim's invention, as was the now-famous `www.name.name' format for
addressing machines on the Web.’
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The first HTML version was not standardised anywhere and so does not have any
version name. The first official version HTML 2 was introduced by IETF (Internet
Engineering Task Force) working group in 1994. Later the specification development
was moved to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
The following chapters analyse HTML specifications based on appropriate
specifications by W3C.
2.1 HTML 4.01
The specification version 4.01 was the first widely spread and used version. The
W3C recommendation 4.0, later revisioned to 4.01 was released in December 1999
(W3 CONSORCIUM, 1999). In terms of information content, most of the
specification is important. Chapter 14 (W3 CONSORCIUM,1999) mentions support
for CSS styling. Later, this aspect appeared to be a key factor in defining the look of
websites. The specification covers elements for several textual content types. For the
research purposes we can define several key chapters and parts of the language:
• 7.5.1 Headings
• 9 Text
• 10 Lists
• 11 Tables
• 12 Links
• 15 Alignment, font styles, and horizontal rules
One of the most important aspects for the study objectives is the language syntax.
The HTML till 4.01 version was based on SGML – so it is an application of the
standard. Most important rules are:
• Element names are always case-insensitive
• Certain elements were permitted to omit the end tag
• Attribute names are always case-insensitive
• Attribute values can stand without quotes (under certain conditions)
• Some attributes have no value
2.2 XHTML
In 2000 a new specification was introduced. XHTML 1.0 was released and in 2002
revised. This version is still used on many websites, but is continuously replaced. As
W3 CONSORCIUM (2000) writes: ‘XHTML is a family of current and future
document types and modules that reproduce, subset, and extend HTML 4’ Actually,
in terms of information content, the specification is nothing else than reworked
HTML 4.01 using rules of XML.
The main differences cover 2 aspects. First, attribute name as identifier for
elements a, applet, form, frame, iframe, img, and map is formally deprecated. The ID
reference type from XML should be used instead. Second and more important change
is in syntax. Since XHTML is an application of XML instead of SGML, the use of
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tags, elements and attributes has more limitations. Generally it has to agree with
XML syntax and rules. The most important aspects follow:
• Elements and attributes names are always lower case (XML is case-
sensitive) - !
• All elements must have end tags -
!
• Attributes must have a value
• Attribute values must always be quoted - class=bold ! class=“bold“
• Overlapping of elements is not permitted (must be well-formed)
o here is an emphasized paragraph.
o here is an emphasized paragraph.
In 2010, W3C released the specification XHTML Modularization 1.1, which is
and abstract modularization of XHTML (W3 CONSORCIUM, 2010). On the basis of
this document specification XHTML™ 1.1 - Module-based XHTML and XHTML
Basic 1.1 - Second Edition was created (W3 CONSORCIUM, 2010). The main (and
only) contribution was the modular architecture. So it is based on several modules
that relies on certain areas. The specification was not widely used probably thanks to
already ongoing development of HTML5. The XHTML 1.1 specification is based on
Strict variant of 1.0. Regarding the information content, there are only two
differences. Firstly, the element name was finally removed and is now obsolete.
Secondly, element ruby has been added.
2.3 HTML5
Originally the development of HTML5 was performed by WHATWG group. The
first public draft by W3C was released already in 2008 during the finishing of
XHTML 1.1 (W3 CONSORCIUM, 2008). Final recommendation was released in
2014 (W3 CONSORCIUM, 2014). Nowadays the HTML5 is the most widely spread
version used on websites (Power Mapper, 2015) as shown on Figure 1.
Fig. 1. HTML and XHTML language specifications used by websites.
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HTML5 specification covers specification of abstract language as well as a set of
APIs. The syntax is defined as two types – HTML 5 based on HTML and XHTML 5
based on XML (XHTML). The HTML syntax comes from the original 4.01 with
almost all rules and is recommended for developers. HTML5 is not – by the syntax –
an application of some general language. The specification covers complete language
definition and does not appeal to any other ones.
Main changes in HTML5 in terms of information content comprise a set of
applicable elements and attributes. Some of them are now obsolete including
elements font, listing, strike, big, center, or attributes name, summary, etc. On the
other side, there are many new elements bringing new possibilities for semantics.
The future development version – HTML 5.1 (W3 CONSORCIUM, 2015)
currently points out only unimportant small changes and improvements. No elements
or attributes are removed. In terms of information content, only small improvements
on semantics have been recently expected. The specification is currently in Working
Draft phase, so changes are expected.
2.4 Content Management Systems and Information Content
Content Management Systems (CMS) store content differently. However,
WYSIWYG editors are utilized by most of them for the main part of content. Then it
can be extended by another attachments. The WYSIWYG editors can usually add
these attachments as well. However, working with such content is limited. Since it is
part of the main content, automatic separating is difficult and can lead to
inconsistency of the source code. Some CMS solves the problem by composition of
blocks of content. E.g. Drupal can add so called fields to post types (nodes). Each
node type has a given structure (template), which cannot be changed for node
instances. An example is shown in Figure 2.
Fig. 2. Example of creation of node in Drupal CMS. The left side shows defining the structure
template. The right side shows authoring of content instance (node)
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A change of the template affects all existing node instances (e.g. articles). It can
even lead to a data loss. Each field is in a separate table or a table attribute (based on
configuration). Other CMS approach these issues in a similar way, an example of
WordPress is shown in Figure 3. Content fragmentation dependent on the
configuration of certain CMS leads to a limited portability of content. Problems can
appear when upgrading to a newer version of CMS, change to a different one or even
archiving.
Fig. 3. HTML and XHTML language specifications used by websites
2.5 Long term research and investigations
The Department of Information Technologies in cooperation with university
newspapers (online magazine) has accomplished several observations and
experiments with content authors. The department also operates portal Agris.cz,
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which is one of the most frequently visited information sources of the agrarian sector
in the Czech Republic. Several interviews were run as well.
3 Results
The analysis of HTML in previous chapter was used to determine, how the
language specifications changed in terms of information content. Any essential
changes were not observed and are not expected for the future.
The analysis of content management systems and other researches suggests the
creation of content by composition of separate blocks as a right approach. However,
the current solutions are limited due to fixed structure of block. Instances of content
are lack of independent ordering of these blocks. This approach also supports the
requirements for connection with mobile devices.
Long term research and the cooperation with university newspapers and Agris.cz
portal suggests that users have problems with editing advanced content elements.
More advanced features of editors can be difficult, especially when it needs some re-
edition. The key problem areas can be classified as follows:
• Tables containing pictures
• Floated objects (elements)
• Insertion of automated content parts (from CMS)
• Galleries
• Movements of parts of content inside editor (tables etc.)
Other research results suggest to offer predefined blocks of content to content
authors. These blocks are easier for editing and take advantage of the unified final
presentation on a website.
4 Conclusion
The results of this study show several conclusions for the further research and
project process. The HTML5 can be used for the carriage of main information
content parts. In terms of storage, the study suggests to extend it by division into
blocks, which can be processed separately. This approach should support the
ordering of the blocks independently for each content instance.
These findings suggest that HTML5 language needs to be wrapped in some
abstract envelope, which supports the mentioned features. There is a need to define
interface for communication and cooperation with content management systems or
other applications. Further research should focus on determining the exact form or
markup language to be utilized within the target methodology. Using JSON or XML
in combination with HTML5 suggests itself to be explored. The following
conclusions can be drawn from the presented study:
• The HTML5 language specification is not expected to essentially change
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• The language needs to be wrapped in an abstract envelope to support
several requirements:
o Communication with CMS or other applications
o Allowing support to communicate with mobile devices
o Universal approach and portability of the content
o Support for metadata description (e.g. OpenGraph,
AGROVOC), correct semantics, sharing (e.g. OAI-PMH),
Internet of Things
• Further research should focus on:
o Useful and user friendly UI (User Interface)
o Easy and fast content authoring from any device
o User eXperience measurements
o Minimizing of input errors in terms of valid and consistent
presented output on websites
• Storing of structured data independently on the look of final output
o Different devices can have different demands on UI
Acknowledgments. The results and knowledge included herein have been obtained
owing to support from the following institutional grants.
Internal grant agency of the Faculty of Economics and Management, Czech
University of Life Sciences in Prague, grant no. 20151038, “Methods for creation
and update of information content in WWW environment“.
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