The overview in the previous section shows XHTML as one of the markup languages that you will need for UI development. Are we kicking in an open door here? Maybe, maybe not.
We hope you remember that all the Backbase code is contained within script
tags with type="application/backbase+xml"
; we called this a Backbase area. This means that a browser will not process any tags placed within this area directly. Instead, the Backbase Client Runtime will process them before being presented to the browser. This is the reason why XHTML is a markup language for the Client Runtime just like the other markup languages that it processes.
If you place a tag in a Backbase area that looks like an XHTML tag, in reality, it is a tag from the XHTML markup language implemented by Backbase. This offers some interesting possibilities: an XHTML language that complies fully with the W3C standards on all browsers, for example. There is some sugar on top of this, which adds a very important feature: AJAX support...