The general architecture of the ACS5 presentation system is that
all pages are first produced in an intermediate XML representation
which is transformed to HTML using XSLT. This makes the 'templating'
system very powerful, thanks to the formating powers of XSLT.
The downside is that most HTML designers get a bit pale when you
show them an XSL stylesheet for the first time. We are well aware of
that problem and are working on a JSP based system that simplifies the
writing of XSL stylesheets considerably, so that the styling feels
more natural to a designer that is used to the imperative nature of
most templating systems like ATS.
For more information on how ACS is going to use XML/XSLT you
should check out the documentation on the ACS5
Presentation System, in particular Bill Schneider's excellent
introuction on XML
and XSLT in the ACS.
And, as always, you should post any feedback, comments, questions
or criticism to the ACS
Core Platform bboard, where most of the ACS5 development
discussion takes place.
