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

Altova Authentic: Tip of the Iceberg  

Reviews Altova Authentic, a free, WYSIWYG, Windows-based, forms-based XML editor.

Wersan, Fred. Intercom (2004). Design>Information Design>Software>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

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an organization dedicated to promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards and developing specialized metadata vocabularies for describing resources that enable more intelligent information discovery systems.

DCMI. Design>Information Design>XML>Metadata

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

Building New Documents with XSLT  

This chapter will take you a few steps further by showing you how to add text and markup to your result tree with XSLT templates. First, you'll addliteral text to your output. Then you'll work with literal result elements, that is, elements that are represented literally in templates. You'll also learn how to add content with the text, element, attribute, attribute-set, comment, and processing-instruction elements. In addition, you'll get your first encounter with attribute value templates, which provide a way to define templates inside attribute values.

Fitzgerald, Michael. O'Reilly and Associates (2003). Design>Information Design>XML>XSL

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

Commercializing the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web really is an attempt to reconceptualize and reengineer AI for the Web. Discusses the path forward for successfully selling and developing Semantic Web technology into industry.

Clark, Kendall Grant. XML.com (2003). Design>Information Design>Metadata>XML

Content Syndication with RSS  

In this chapter we examine the RSS 0.91, 0.92, and 2.0 specifications in detail. We also show how to create your own feeds and use those created by others.

Hammersley, Ben. O'Reilly and Associates (2003). Design>Information Design>XML>RSS

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 Content  

Houser provides an overview of XML editors. He discusses in detail three of the most popular content-oriented editors: ArborText Epic, Adobe FrameMaker 7, and SoftQuad XMetaL.

Houser, Alan R. Intercom (2002). Design>Information Design>XML>Adobe FrameMaker

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

Delivering Dynamic Content  

Cisco Systems IOS ITD Documentation group had a requirement to move to the dynamic delivery of documentation to their customers. This meant that the documentation had to be redesigned using a component architecture, moved to XML, and delivered through a personalization engine. This session discusses this process and the results.

Badre, Albert and Sharon Laskowski. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>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

Describing Document Structure  

Discusses some different ways of describing your document structure so that both computers and humans know what you mean.

Tyson, Paul H. Intercom (2003). Design>Information Design>XML>Metadata