[LazyJim]

I am hoping to find someone who has used, the SOAP protocol, XML HTTP Requests, or Server-side XML taslation.

The main goal is to find an alternative to using frames (to change part of a web page while leaving other parts the static).
I want to use a script within the page to download data without the web page actually changing.

The solution does not have to involve XML but I have heard about SOAP and HTTPXMLRequests.

The solution does have to be cross-browser, but I am expecting to have to disregard most old browsers.

If it comes to it, the only hack-solution I have seen is to have an invisible <IFRAME> to load data from pages by changing the src property.

I am also looking into the following...

I would like to use PHP to parse XML documents and trasnlate them with XSLT to HTML (as many (old) browsers can't do this.

My server side processer is PHP, I can't get them to tell me the server OS or software, (maybe there's some PHP that will get me any needed info?).