Tour de XML

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1 Introduction

The purpose of this page is to index a variety of XML things for short demos. I use this page to motivate students for learning XML in classes I teach, e.g. COAP 2180 and STIC II. I usually just show a picture or two and then do a live demo.

2 Text-centric formats (often hand-coded)

2.1 Semantically structured documents

DocBook, the most popular structured document format for writing books and manuals
DITA, a new modular extensible document architecture, popular with IBM.

2.2 Web contents

XHTML, was a popular web page format (maybe to be replaced by XHTML5 in some uncertain future). Mostly a dead project, but most browsers do support XHTML.

3 Data-centric formats (sometimes hand-coded)

3.1 Multimedia synchronization

Timed Text is a W3C standard that is not hugely popular. In Flash, it is used for captions, visit the Flash video captions tutorial. It also is rumored to work in IE 10.

3.2 News syndication

RSS and News feed aggregators

3.3 Vector graphics

SVG (*.svg), popular web format, part of HTML5. Visit openclipart.org. SVG works in all browsers except IE 7/8.
X3D, unpopular 3D web format, new version of oldest Internet format (VRML). Visit X3Dom (webGL in-browser), or Interactive Demos from BS Contact (needs plugin to be installed)
Collada (*.dae), a 3D exchange format. Also used in Google Earth (via the Keyhole Markup language) and therefore fairly popular.

4 Data-centric formats

4.1 Business

BPMN for modeling and implementing business processes. See BPMN 1.2 tutorial and http://demo.bpmn.io/ (online editor)
BPEL a standard for describing executable business process models (partly replaced by BPMN 2.0).

4.2 Authoring formats

Typically, authoring formats define the structure of a zip file, where a single XML file organizes the rest. Most contents are also encoded in XML.

EPub, most popular e-book format (or maybe second most, since Amazon uses a proprietary format for the Kindle)
Open Packaging Conventions and Office Open XML (e.g.. Microsoft Word *.docx)
OpenDocument (ODF) (e.g. OpenOffice *.odt)
Flash CS6 *.fla files
IMS Content Packaging, used to package various types of e-learning formats

Rename that type of file to *.zip to open and have fun with ...

4.3 Playlists

Advanced Stream Redirector (ASX) is an XML format used to store Windows Media files Microsoft Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player Playlist (WPL) is a newer version that is based on a SMIL structure.
Compare this to a non-XML alternative like M3U (Winamp)

5 XML for development

5.1 GUI generators

MXML is Adobe's Layout language for Adobe Flex applications. For the demo see: Adobe Flex 3 Component Explorer
XML User Interface Language (aka XUL) is the language used to make the Firefox GUI and other applications.

5.2 Programming languages and accessories made in XML

XSLT is a translation language, see XSLT Tutorial - Basics
XQuery is a query language, see XQuery tutorial - basics,
Many special purpose languages like XPath, Xinclude and Xlink are used by other XML languages. See XPath tutorial - basics and XInclude

6 More

Browse the XML category.