Advanced XML Validation

XSLT stylesheets are designed to transform XML documents. Coupled with Java extensions, stylesheets can also be a powerful complement to XML Schema when grammar-based validation cannot cover all the constraints required. In this article, Peter Heneback presents the case for validating documents using XSLT with Java extensions and provides practical guidance and code samples.

Heneback, Peter. IBM (2006). Articles>Information Design>Standards>XML

Anything Worth Writing Is Worth Writing in XML  

Tyson supports the claim of his title with a detailed discussion of three important benefits of XML.

Tyson, Paul H. Intercom (2002). Articles>Writing>Information Design>XML

Are you ready for XOP (XML-Oriented Programming)?

The domain model is a familiar concept to most OOP (Object Oriented Programming) developers and architects, and has been used successfully in a variety of systems and projects. But how does this principle apply to SOA-based solutions?

Xu, Peter. IBM (2007). Articles>Information Design>Programming>XML

Assemble a Cross-Platform Firefox Extension

XUL is a surprisingly easy way to build cross-platform browser extensions or even stand-alone applications. Discover how to build powerful, flexible Mozilla browser extensions that go beyond the capabilities of other tools like embedded scripting languages or CGI--because they're built right into the user's browser.

Ogbuji, Uche. IBM (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>Web Browsers

Building a Bridge: DITA, DocBook, and ODF

Some folks here are taking a very strong look at DITA. I'm certainly one of them. But we also have a huge legacy of documents in Solbook format (Sun's subset of DocBook). There are tools for editing such documents, and tools for processing them. and there are many people who are comfortable with those tools. So DITA isn't going to replace the world, just yet. But DITA makes extensive reuse possible. It's a format with a serious future, because "reuse" is a very big deal. It lets you single-source your information content so have one place to make an edit. That sort of thing becomes important when you have multiple revisions of a product, and/or multiple variations. It becomes important when different tools and different products use the same information in different ways. It can drastically improve quality, ensure uniformity of presentation. Finally, structured formats like DITA and DocBook create the kind of consistently-tagged information that allows for useful automation.

Armstrong, Eric. Sun Microsystems (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Choosing an XML Editor

More and more people are working with texts and documents in XML format. With the increasing popularity of XML, the number of XML editors is also increasing and it can be difficult to choose the editor that best suits a particular user or task. The aim of this Information Paper is to provide an introduction to different features XML editors can have and the extent to which these features are implemented in various editors. It also presents the result of an evaluation exercise where different user groups tried a number of the editors.

van den Broek, Thijs. AHDS (2004). Articles>Information Design>Software>XML

Converting to XML: Some Point-Form Pros and Cons

I have recently converted some user documents from MS Word to XML for a medical device company with the intent that they would be looking at authoring their future end-user documentation (printed, embedded, and online) in XML. I want to share with you some of the triumphs and challenges we had met along the way.

Stuhlemmer, Barbara. ClearComm Information Design (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>Case Studies

Create an XML Schema Document from an Instance or DTD

There are several tools that can help you generate an XML Schema document from either an instance or a DTD. This hack shows you how to get the job done with little fuss.

O'Reilly and Associates (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML

Create Well-Formed XML with JavaScript

Use JavaScript to ensure that you write correct, well-formed XML in web pages.

O'Reilly and Associates (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML

Creating Documents with Structural Markup  

Now we come to the point of actually producing documents using structural markup—either eXtensible Markup Language (XML) or Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). Our sequence of topics illustrates the recommended steps to follow when you first implement structural markup: Learn about it and convince yourself and your organization of its benefits, identify your specific goals and expectations, and spend plenty of time selecting or designing your document structures. Only then should you get down to the specifics of how to produce XML or SGML documents. If you simply try to drop in an XML editor to replace your current word processing application, you will be lucky to avoid total disaster.

Tyson, Paul H. Intercom (2004). Articles>Information Design>SGML>XML

Creating XML Trees with the XmlTextWriter and XmlDocument Objects

So you know all about reading and parsing XML files, and even checking if they're well-formed and valid. Now, take a step into more advanced territory with this expose of two objects that let you dynamically create well-formed XML documents in your ASP.NET scripts.

ASP Free (2004). Articles>Information Design>Software>XML

Darwin Information Typing Architecture

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. The architecture and a related DTD and a W3C-Schema was developed by IBM.

Wikipedia. Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA XML)

DITA is an architecture for creating topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways. It is also an architecture for creating new information types and describing new information domains based on existing types and domains. This allows groups to create very specific, targeted document type definitions using a process called specialization, while still sharing common output transforms and design rules developed for more general types and domains.

Cover Pages (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

A Day at the DITA CIDM Conference

I went to the Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2008 conference (put on by CIDM), which took place in Santa Clara last week. While I went to support our co-founder's speech on DocBook versus DITA, I also used this opportunity to catch up with software vendors and single-source users. Here's my top #10 take-away list.

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Deep XML

At the recent XML conference, Norm Walsh hosted a nocturne on Practical RDF, the highlight of which was his tour through thenorman.walsh.name setup. From the outside you may think this is a mere blog, but it’s actually a side-effect of a frighteningly gnarly confluence of metadata streams which are shaken and stirred to produce a sprawling network of resources a small part of which you might want to peruse for Norm’s news & views. I have a picture that made the audience at the session gasp in disbelief.

Bray, Tim. Deep XML (2003). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>XML

Default Mapping for Annotated XML Schema

The IBM DB2 Viper release brings many new XML-related (and non-XML) features. One such feature is the annotated XML schema decomposition that allows you to decompose their XML documents into relational tables. The annotated XML schema supports various mapping constructs that allow you to map elements/attributes defined in the XML schema to table-column pairs in the relational schema. For large XML schemas consisting of many XML schema documents, manual annotation can be a cumbersome task. Get an introduction to the tool, DefaultAnnotater, that allows you to create default mapping and a default relational schema into which corresponding XML documents can be decomposed. This article provides a good starting platform for not only trying out the new function, but also further enhancing the mapping in a given XML schema.

Pradhan, Mayank. IBM (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML

A Delta Format for XML: Identifying Changes in XML Files and Representing the Changes in XML

This paper describes how changes to XML documents and data files can be represented in XML and proposes a delta format for XML. Although Canonical XML provides a mechanism for verifying that two XML files or documents are equal, it is more often necessary to determine the differences between two XML documents. Such differences should ideally be represented in XML and this paper describes how such changes can be represented in XML with minimal additional attributes and elements. The paper describes how any changes can be simply represented using this delta format, and how the delta file has the same look and feel as the original files being compared. The paper describes how the delta file can be transformed into HTML for viewing by using a simple XSL style sheet, and by modifying this style sheet changes to particular XML file types can be presented to users in a way that suits their view. In addition, the delta file can be processed by any XML application for other purposes.

La Fontaine, Robin. XML Europe (2001). Articles>Information Design>XML

Designing a New Schema with XML Design Patterns

Proposes the design of an XML-based type library format. If you've had exposure to Microsoft COM or Mozilla's XPCOM, you're probably familiar with their binary TLB (MS) and XDT (Mozilla) formats that define the available operations and interfaces for a package of portable components. An interpreted language such as JavaScript can use these definitions as cheat sheets to find out what operations and parameters are available to call on-the-fly.

Downey, Kyle. XML.com (2003). Articles>Information Design>XML>Metadata

Designing Your Own XML Schema: Learn the Essentials

This is the first article in a series which guides you in designing XML Schemas right from the basics without any hurdles.

Chaterjee, Jagadish. Dev Articles (2006). Articles>Information Design>Databases>XML

Displaying ADO Retrieved Data with XML Islands

An XML data island is a piece of well-formed XML embedded into an HTML file. This article will show you how to retrieve data in an XML format from a database using ADO; you will also learn how to bind this data into an HTML document.

Krishnaswamy, Jayaram. Dev Articles (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>XHTML

DITA Backlash?

I have seen a couple of blog postings lately that underscore the statement that DITA is not for everyone or for every situation.

Rockley Group, The (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DITA--A Standard for TD?  

The abbreviation DITA stands for 'Darwin Information Typing Architecture', an information architecture based on XML. DITA is not a mere reinvention of the wheel: rather, it sets the standards for known structuring requirements. The most striking feature of this architecture is the clear orientation towards a technology for structuring, which has already proved its worth in online documentation.

Closs, Sissi. tekom (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DITA: From the Perspective of Someone Actually Using It

In this podcast, Marlene Martineau of New Dawn Technologies explains why they adopted DITA, how they adopted it, the benefits they're experiencing, and the reasons why she'll never go back.

Martineau, Marlene. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DITA: What You Need To know about the Darwin Information Typing Architecture  

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is a hot topic among those who author, edit, deliver and manage content. But adopting a standard architecture is an important decision that requires up front research and knowledge of the pitfalls. Find out if DITA is right for your organization. Read this whitepaper to learn more (PDF).

Manning, Steve. Rockley Group, The (2005). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

Documenting Schemas  

The issue of documenting schemas—or any machine readable language—goes beyond simple additions of comments. Thereal challengeistocreateschemasthat arereadablebothdirectlybylookingat their sourcecodeandbydocumentation extraction tools.

van der Vlist, Eric. O'Reilly and Associates (2001). Articles>Information Design>XML>Documentation