Editing XML Files

XML documents consist of elements. Some of these elements contain the document's text, other elements represent the document's structure. Assume the following XML document that contains a list of addresses:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?XML:stylesheet type="text/css" href="addresses.css"?>
<!DOCTYPE Addresses SYSTEM "addresses.dtd">
<Addresses>
   <DocumentHeadline>Addresses</DocumentHeadline>
   <AddressTable>
      <Address>
         <Name>Jack Miller</Name>
         <Street>Baker Street</Street>
         <City>New York</City>
      </Address>
      <Address>
         <Name>Tom Baker</Name>
         <Street>Miller Street</Street>
         <City>Los Angeles</City>
      </Address>
      <Address>
         <Name>Bill Taylor</Name>
         <Street>Old Street</Street>
         <City>Washington</City>
      </Address>
   </AddressTable>
</Addresses>

In this example the elements DocumentHeadline, Name, Street and City contain the document's text, the other elements Addresses, AddressTable and Address are structural elements without any text. After this document has been loaded Text Control displays it WYSIWYG with the formatting styles found in the specified CSS file and automatically switches to the XML editor mode. In this mode, text can be inserted or deleted like in any other document. Text selections are possible only inside of single XML elements. If a user tries to select more than one element Text Control expands the selection to its maximum which is the complete text of the single element.

Like in tables the TAB (Shift TAB) key can be used to select the complete text of the next (previous) element. Clipboard operations are possible as in any other document, but if text is inserted from another document Text Control inserts the text without any formatting attributes.

Because XML documents does not contain formatting attributes they can be changed only via formatting styles. Formatting via the Button Bar changes the attributes of the current style. Formatting via formatting functions is disabled in XML documents. To change formatting attributes either the built-in style dialog boxes or the style collection interface can be used. To make these changes permanent, the new attributes must explicitly be saved in the CSS file.