Browser Support

Internet Explorer 5 features significant updates to the XML-related components offered in previous beta releases and Internet Explorer 4.0. This release supports the following key features.

Direct browsing of native XML	The Microsoft XML implementation lets users view XML using XSL or cascading style sheets with their Web browser, just as they view HTML documents. For more information, see Browsing XML Documents in Internet Explorer 5.
High-performance, validating XML engine	The XML engine familiar to Internet Explorer 4.0 developers has been substantially enhanced and fully supports the W3C Extensible Markup Language (XML) and XML Namespaces Recommendations. Native XML support in the Windows operating system means that developers can count on the full XML processing capabilities being present to read and manipulate the data they move between their applications and components.
Extensible Style Language support	With the Microsoft XSL processor, based on the December 18th XSL Working Draft , developers can apply style sheets to XML data and display the data in a dynamic and flexible way that can be customized easily. The XSL Pattern syntax can also be used to programmatically find and extract information within an XML data set on the client or the server. For more information, see the XSL Pattern Reference.
XML Schema	Schemas define the rules of an XML document, including element names and rich data types, which elements can appear in combination, and which attributes are available for each element. To enable multitier applications, Microsoft will be releasing an XML Schema language based on the XML-Data Note and other schema submissions to the W3C XML working group. For more information, see the XSL Schema Reference.
Server-side XML	Server-side XML processing allows XML to be used as a standard means of passing data between multiple distributed application servers—even across operating system boundaries.
XML Document Object Model	The DOM is a standard object application programming interface that gives developers programmatic control of XML document content, structure, formats, and more. The Microsoft XML implementation includes full support for the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Recommendation and is accessible from script, the Visual Basic® development system, C++, and other languages. For more information, see XML DOM Reference.
Channel Definition Format	Channel Definition Format (CDF) is an XML-based data format used in Internet Explorer 4.0 and Internet Explorer 5 browsers to describe Active Channel content and desktop components. It is used by thousands of content developers and millions of end users to describe collections of pages and data about pages, such as channel-bar display, download behavior, Web-page usage, and page-hit logging.
Open Software Description	Open Software Description (OSD) is an XML-based data format, fully supported in Internet Explorer 4.01 and Internet Explorer 5 browsers, for advertising and installing software components over the Internet. When new versions of software become available, OSD provides a publishing mechanism to notify users. OSD can provide detailed descriptions of how to install ActiveX Controls and Java packages, and class files, adding increased functionality to facilitate setup.
Vector Graphics: VML and SVG	Internet Explorer 5 and Office 2000 documents support XML data islands containing vector graphic data, as described in Vector Markup Language Overview. Vector graphics offer specific advantages over the image formats that are currently standardized in HTML, including compactness of representation and scalability, factors that thereby reduce the download time for end users. W3C members Autodesk Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Macromedia Inc., Visio Corp. and Microsoft submitted the specification for Vector Markup Language (VML) to the W3C. VML is based on existing HTML capabilities and allows vector graphical information to be integrated with the text and other data found in HTML pages. VML is an application of XML that will make it faster and easier to create compelling Web pages by allowing users and authors to cut and paste vector graphics across applications, without any loss of quality or ability to edit them. VML also defines a set of constraint transformations that facilitate the description of business diagrams in documents created in Office 2000. The W3C has formed a working group to combine the best ideas from the VML proposal and other graphic proposals submitted to the W3C (such as DrawML and PGML) into the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format for the interchange and delivery of vector graphics.
WebDAV	Today the Web is a read-only medium. HTTP defines a way to read documents but not a general-purpose way to write them, much less manipulate collections of documents. Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) is a set of extensions to HTTP 1.1 that will enable people to read and write documents over the Web in a standards-based way. WebDAV is based completely on XML data encoding. It allows users to share and work with server-based documents regardless of their authoring tools, platforms, or the type of Web server on which the documents are stored. WebDAV lets users access files across the Web with virtually the same richness found on traditional client/server networks. The WebDAV specification is currently an IETF Proposed Standard (RFC 2518). Many implementations are being released and tested against each other. WebDAV has the potential to revolutionize the Web, turning it into a global file and data management system. Microsoft is already shipping a number of products in beta release that support WebDAV. For example, Internet Explorer 5, Windows 2000 Server, and Office 2000 all support the current specification.

Microsoft is actively involved in defining the emerging XML standard and related technologies and will continue to implement XML as defined by the (W3C ). W3C is a platform-neutral and vendor-neutral global organization that oversees standardization of World Wide Web technologies, including XML.