On 23. 7. 2026 00:47, Thomas Åkesson wrote:
On 20 Jul 2026, at 14:19, Branko Čibej <[email protected]> wrote:
On 20. 7. 2026 14:01, Timofei Zhakov wrote:
On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 2:52 PM C. Michael Pilato
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 5:14 AM Thomas Åkesson
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
I was unable to find any discussion on this deprecation of
XSLT in the browsers.
https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/deprecating-xslt
I suspect this deprecation will break the Subversion web ui
(folder listing and Collection of Repositories) and the
customization point for these UIs (SVNIndexXSLT).
We use this XSLT extensively so I am interested if anyone
has experimented with server-side transformation?
This is unfortunate, but hopefully the situation isn't quite as
bad as you might think.
IIRC, the XSLT variant of the mod_dav_svn directory listing
feature is entirely optional. When a GET request arrives aimed
at a versioned directory, if SVNIndexXSLT is set, an XML
response referencing the template is generated; but otherwise,
an HTML response is still generated. So this deprecation might
force admins to turn off the SVNIndexXSLT "flavor", resulting in
some ... undecorated directory listings. But at least I expect
the listings will still "work" (for the most basic of
definitions of "work").
It does cause me to wonder though... Would a SVNIndexCSS
feature be interesting -- where we generate that HTML with quite
a bit more structure (divs, ids, etc.) and allow folks to point
to a CSS file that at least pretties it up?
Just to throw it in: I think a built-in reasonably usable web
interface would probably be the most wanted feature that we can do
in today's reality of Subversion.
I think it would not, it's bad idea and horrible waste of time. Just
thinking of the authn/authz/security aspect of such a web interface
makes me shudder. Subversion hosting services exist, with much better
user interfaces than we could ever hack up given the resources we
have. If you're thinking of some kind of server-side-generated
interactive web UI written in C ... yeah, just no. People who want
something lightweight can use ViewVC or maybe Trac.
The XSLT support happened at a time when there were few alternatives,
and some of us (i.e., me) thought it would be a nifty idea. I'm still
embarrassed by it. Just thinking of the wasted lines of code for
something probably no-one uses, ouch.
I hope I can lighten up your view of this extension point.
We, Simonsoft, have during the last 18 years successfully relied on
this mechanism to serve our UI from the true subversion URL. Given
that it has worked reliably for more than 2 decades with very little
maintenance… not too bad.
I do agree that producing a great web UI is not a priority for the
core Subversion project. But providing compelling extension points is
important to enable others, open-source or commercial. We are very
grateful for the XSLT extension point but it's time to find a new
approach.
That does ease my mind, thanks. I wasn't aware the transformations were
used.
-- Brane
