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 Management and the Electronic Common Technical Document (eCTD)

The XML eCTD DTD (Document Type Definition) defines the overall structure of the submission. The purpose of the XML backbone is two-fold: (1) to manage meta-data for the entire submission and each document within the submission and (2) to constitute a comprehensive table of contents and provide corresponding navigation aids.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Group, The (2004). Articles>Content Management>Standards>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

Convert Atom Documents to JSON

Converting an Atom document to JSON might, at first, appear to be a fairly straightforward task. Atom is, after all, just a bit of XML and XML-to-JSON conversion tools are widely available. However, the Atom format is more than just a set of XML elements and attributes. A number of subtle details can make proper handling of Atom difficult. This article describes those issues and demonstrates a mechanism implemented by the Apache Abdera project to convert Atom documents into JSON and produces a result that is readable, usable, and complete.

Snell, James. IBM (2008). Articles>Web Design>XML>Ajax

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

Coping with Babel: How to Localize XML

Outlines pitfalls that are often encountered by authors, programmers and localizers when first using XML, as well as ways to avoid these problems. Following Zydron’s advice can save developers time, money and headaches, and can help them reach out effectively to the world.

Zydron, Andrzej. LISA (2004). Articles>Language>Localization>XML

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 Goal-Oriented, Task-Based Navigation for Information with the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)  

By organizing information around the goals that users are trying to accomplish, you can provide task-based information that truly addresses user needs. This article walks through the steps for creating more useful information navigation by implementing information development best practices with examples in the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA).

Swope, Amber and Michael Priestley. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Documentation>XML>DITA

Creating RSS Files for Your Web Site

Recently I have received more and more questions about the Rich Site Summary (RSS) format and its use for Web masters. The short answer is that RSS is a great way for any Web site to advertise their content in an always up-to-date fashion.

WebRef (2000). Design>Web Design>XML>RSS

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

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)  

The purpose of this research note is to introduce the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) and highlight its relationship to other information architectures like DocBook and Information Mapping.

Namahn (2005). Articles>Documentation>XML>DITA

Data: The Essence of a Digital Lifestyle

I've been thinking a lot about metadata recently, but not from the standpoint of XML or programming or helping to organize and index data. My interest is in the future of content ownership, delivery, and value. I see a future for media that looks very different from the media of today. The germ of this idea actually came from my experiences with online movie rentals.

Knemeyer, Dirk. UXmatters (2005). Articles>User Experience>XML>Metadata

Database-Driven Tree Structures with XML and XSLT

This article deals with the display of tree-structures that are driven by a database. There are actually a few approaches to transform a 2-dimensional structure into a tree, and it seems odd that most are unknown to many developers.

Opitz, Pascal. Content with Style (2005). Design>Web Design>XML>XSL

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

Death by UML Fever

A potentially deadly illness, clinically referred to as UML (Unified Modeling Language) fever, is plaguing many software-engineering efforts today. This fever has many different strains that vary in levels of lethality and contagion. A number of these strains are symptomatically related, however. Rigorous laboratory analysis has revealed that each is unique in origin and makeup. A particularly insidious characteristic of UML fever, common to most of its assorted strains, is the difficulty individuals and organizations have in self-diagnosing the affliction. A consequence is that many cases of the fever go untreated and often evolve into more complex and lethal strains.

Bell, Alex E. Queue (2004). Articles>Project Management>XML>UML

The Death of HTML?  

Knobel considers whether recent developments in Web technology, such as the increasing popularity of XML, have fated HTML to obsolescence.

Knobel, Cory P. Intercom (2002). Design>Web Design>XML

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

Defining an XML Document Model with a DTD

An XML document is considered 'well written' when its syntax is correct, and 'valid' when it respects a document model. While a document must be 'well written,' it does not necessarily have to be 'valid.' However, as XML is a meta language, there are an infinite number of XML formats, and most XML documents should respect a particular document model, which can be defined in one of two ways: By a Document Type Definition (DTD); By an XML Schema. In this article, we are going to look at how you should go about implementing the former, using a DTD.

Gallard, Samuel. Intranet Journal. Design>Web Design>XML>Metadata