Tour de XML

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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.

The list

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 Interactive Demos from BS Contact (an X3D vendor)
  • Collada (*.dae), a 3D exchange format. Also used in Google Earth (via the Keyhole Markup language) and therefore fairly popular.
Business
  • BPMN for modeling and implementing business processes. See BPMN 1.2 tutorial
  • BPEL a standard for describing executable business process models (partly replaced by BPMN 2.0).
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.
Rename that type of file to *.zip to open and have fun with ...
(Somewhat) human readable structured documents
  • DocBook, the most popular structured document format for writing books and manuals
  • DITA, a new modular extensible document architecture, popular with IBM.
  • XHTML, popular web page format (to be replaced by XHTML5 in the future).
Multimedia synchronization
News syndication
GUI generators
Playlists
Programming languages and accessories made in XML
More
  • Browse the XML category.