Why a new XML Editing Framework ?

What developers say ?

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-xml2008prevw.html

The end of markup-centric editors

“In the early days, a lot of vendors released markup-centric editors that made embedded documents in tree controls. This had the advantage of being incredibly easy to code using numerous preexisting tree components like JTree on Swing. But they had the distinct disadvantage that nobody wanted to read, write, or edit their XML documents as trees. The marketplace has mostly swept these tools away to an unlamented grave.”

Elliotte Rusty Harold

Structured Data Editing Styles

AXEL and XTiger XML Editing Style

Document Template-based Authoring Overview

Template Language Design Goals

• Support browser-based implementations
• Simple to learn for XHTML authors
• Express constraints on the XHTML structure
• Allow a unique transformation to a target XML content model

XTiger XML Language

The core language is only 5 elements and 10 attributes

Attributes for structuring content

<xt:component name="Contact">...</xt:component>
...
<xt:use types="Contact"/> <!-- no choice -->
<xt:use types="Parag List Code Figure"/> <!-- several choices -->
			

Attributes for repeating content

			
<xt:attribute types="text" name="Phone" option="unset"/>
...					
<xt:repeat minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="*">
	<xt:use types="Contact"/>
</xt:repeat>
			

Attributes for governing XML generation

<Guestbook>
   <Person>Charlie</Person>
   <Person Phone="777">Oscar</Person>
</Guestbook>		
			

<xt:repeat label="Guestbook"
          minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="*">
  <xt:use types="Contact"
          label="Person"/>
</xt:repeat>			
			

Attributes for UI generation

<h1>				
  <xt:use types="text">
    Workpackage title
  </xt:use>				
</h1>
			

User Interface Design Goals

• Intuitive
• Minimize mouse movements (Fitt's law)
• Minimize choice complexity (Hick's law)
• Support plugins for domain specific languages and documents

Example : Optionality and Repetition

4 icons for 5 states

	minOccurs	maxOccurs	State (#nb)
	0	y (>=1)	0
	0	1	1
	0	y (>1)	1
	1	y (>1)	1
	x (>=0)	y (>x)	(x<) n (<y)

Demonstrations

Javascript Implementation

• Client-side
• Small footprint (from 96KB to 135KB with major plugins)
• Cross-browser
• Efficient (transformation / load / save times)

Performances

Conclusion

• Time for XML Authoring for the masses ?
• Time for data driven and document driven authoring with the same tools ?
• Very light architecture
• Low entry barrier for developers
• XTiger XML public specification
• AXEL implementation open source