
1099
X
ML, short for Extensible Markup Language, has quickly become a
powerful force on the Web and an important technology for Web
designers to master. XML enables designers to define the parts of
any document—from Web page to invoice—in terms of how those parts are
used. When a document is defined by its structure, rather than its appear-
ance, as it is with HTML, the same document can be read by a wide variety
of systems and put to use far more efficiently.
Dreamweaver includes Roundtrip XML as a complement to its Roundtrip
HTML core philosophy. Roundtrip HTML ensures that the defined tags of
HTML remain just as you’ve written them. With XML, no one defined set
of tags exists—XML tags can be written for an industry, a company, or just
a Web site. Roundtrip XML permits Web designers to export and import
XML pages based on their own structures.
You can find XML all throughout Dreamweaver, just under the hood. The
Design Notes feature is based on XML, as is the completely customizable
menu system and even the HTML Styles feature. The Third-party Tags file
is pure XML and can describe any kind of tag. In fact, you can use XML to
describe most anything, even HTML. This chapter explores the basics of
XML, as well as the implementation of Roundtrip XML in Dreamweaver.
You’ll also find techniques for presenting XML data in a Web page using
Extensible Style Sheet Transformation (XSLT) t ...