Re: "View Structure"
Karl F. Best (kbest@Adobe.COM)
Fri, 18 Apr 1997 14:56:20 -0700
Jon Bosak wrote:
> Because every well-formed XML document describes a tree, however, it's
> also possible to have a "View Structure" option that would give you a
> default navigable view of the document as a tree -- like the default
> Jumbo behavior. This view would allow you to expand and collapse the
> structure and it would show attribute nodes that could be opened to
> see the attributes on each element. It could use a file manager
> metaphor, like Jumbo, or it could use the plus-button/minus-button
> interface used for most dynamic browser TOCs, or it could use
> something else; the point is that it would be trivially autogenerated
> on request, show the document in XML terms, and provide a commonly
> understood base view independent of the application interface supplied
> for a given document type that would always be available to people
> trying to understand or debug an XML document. "View Structure" would
> presumably *not* use different type sizes, etc., but concentrate
> instead on exposing the guts of the document, so I would expect the
> display generated by character-mode browsers to look roughly the same
> as the display generated by the fancy graphics-mode browsers.
An excellent example of this sort of view is found in FrameMaker+SGML's
Structure View. It's useful for navigation, is easily expanded and
contracted, and displays attributes too.
(I loved this view even before I joined Adobe, honest!)
</karl>
======================================================================
Karl F. Best voice 408-536-6531
Manager, Frame Developer Support fax 408-536-6883
Adobe Systems - San Jose, CA kbest@adobe.com
======================================================================