All text content of a website in a single XML Options

[ZlsetrdX]

I'm a newbie building my Website and also just getting into XML. I want to have all the text content of my Website in a single XML file, organized in text blocks for each section (profile, services, etc). Then marking every blocks in the XML so I can refer to each independent block from each different HTML page instead of having each block inside the HTML. I have no idea on whether this is possible or not, or how to do it. Please help!
God bless you.

[Tom H.]

A Google search for "tidy convert to xml" might send you in the right direction.

[pandy]

Hm. I thought this was going to happen on the server? You need some program or programming anyhow.

[ZlsetrdX]

Thanks, Tom H. However, I'm following the XHTML tutorial of W3schools so I think I'm already writing my website in XHTML.
This is my website. Sorry for my poor explanation. What I mean is like this:

1) Move all the text content of my website to mywebsite.xml, organized in text blocks corresponding to each web page
E.g.: I cut the text content from the HMTL of the "my profile" web page and paste it to the XML file as a text block under a suitable heading. By text content I mean all the text that is viewable, like "Autodidact. Freelance English-Spanish translator and style proofreader..."

2) Mark each text block in the XML
E.g.: I mark the above mentioned text block with an id, "profile"

3) Place a link in the page's HTML to the corresponding text block in mywebsite.xml, so it calls the text when the page is loaded
E.g.: where the original text content of the "my profile" page was, I place a link to the corresponding text block marked "profile", so the text is called and viewable when the page is loaded

That way I'd manage text content more easily. For example, the text of my menu entries is the same in all pages. I want that when I need to modify the text of a menu entry (e.g. replacing "graphic design" by "visual art"), I can just do it in the XML file and that's all, instead of making the change in every web page. Also having all of my website's text content stored in a single file makes it easier to locate and modify strings.

How can this be done? Maybe Xpointer would do it? Another way?

[Darin McGrew]

I don't have any experience doing this with a single XML file, but see the FAQ entry How do I include one file in another? Some of the HTML preprocessors can generate multiple HTML files from a single input file, and I'm sure other content management systems can do something similar.

[Christian J]

Thanks, Tom H. However, I'm following the XHTML tutorial of W3schools so I think I'm already writing my website in XHTML.
This is my website. Sorry for my poor explanation. What I mean is like this:

1) Move all the text content of my website to mywebsite.xml, organized in text blocks corresponding to each web page
E.g.: I cut the text content from the HMTL of the "my profile" web page and paste it to the XML file as a text block under a suitable heading. By text content I mean all the text that is viewable, like "Autodidact. Freelance English-Spanish translator and style proofreader..."

2) Mark each text block in the XML
E.g.: I mark the above mentioned text block with an id, "profile"

This sounds unpractical. If you have many almost identical pages (such as product pages in an online store) you might store the unique information in a data base.

3) Place a link in the page's HTML to the corresponding text block in mywebsite.xml, so it calls the text when the page is loaded
E.g.: where the original text content of the "my profile" page was, I place a link to the corresponding text block marked "profile", so the text is called and viewable when the page is loaded

But where will you store information about the HTML elements used in the text block? E.g., a menu contains a separate A element for every link, so in this simple model you must make each link text a separate text block and insert each such text block in its own A element.

That way I'd manage text content more easily. For example, the text of my menu entries is the same in all pages. I want that when I need to modify the text of a menu entry (e.g. replacing "graphic design" by "visual art"), I can just do it in the XML file and that's all, instead of making the change in every web page.

An easier way is to let the server include the menu's HTML from an external text file (using SSI or PHP), see also Darin's link.

[Brian Chandler]

I'm a newbie building my Website and also just getting into XML. I want to have all the text content of my Website in a single XML file, organized in text blocks for each section (profile, services, etc). Then marking every blocks in the XML so I can refer to each independent block from each different HTML page instead of having each block inside the HTML. I have no idea on whether this is possible or not, or how to do it. Please help!

I think you should look at what happened to the people in Iceland who fell for having home loans in Japanese yen.

Anyway, this all seems like a Bad Idea. XHTML is a Bad Idea; XML is a metasyntax for storing serialised information, which is not what you need. It's attractively "readable" (which of course it was meant to be), but a database is the way to store structured content on your server.

Where is your website? What is its content all about?

[Christian J]

I'm following the XHTML tutorial of W3schools

Speaking of which, their XML tutorial shows various examples on how to display XML in browsers, but the only reliable way should be to use a server-side script that creates ordinary (X)HTML of the XML content before sending the page to the visitor's browser. OTOH you don't have to use XML to structure the content on the server, you can use e.g. (server-script) variables, data base entries or even ordinary HTML tags instead of XML (as a silly example I keep the whole news archive of a site in one large hidden HTML document, and let PHP insert selected parts of it into the web pages shown to visitors).

The other W3school examples have pretty serious usability problems:

* If you display XML directly in the browser (styled with CSS or with XSLT) the structural/semantic meanings of the XML elements will be unfamiliar to both users and browsers, so it relies on the style sheet to be readable (in contrast, browsers apply their default styles on HTML elements if no other style sheet is supplied). Alas none of the examples specify a style media type, making it possibly problematic for print or for blind users. Also you can't create links with style sheets, and AFAIK style sheets can't let you put text in browser window's TITLE bar (where a <title> element is usually rendered), if you'd want that.

* You can also let the Javascript DOM insert XML content into existing HTML elements, but this requires a newer browser with javascript enabled. Since search engines don't run javascript they will see none of the XML content.

[ZlsetrdX]

A preprocessor is an app, isn't it? Well, I'd prefer not to use any editors, apps, or any tools other than languages I can write myself (I like to write code, the syntax and stuff, and since I'm not a pro I have chance to try and mess up).

Mine is a personal website mostly about my translation services, not a large one but some elements are always repeated.

I think I'll go with PHP. BTW, any real examples you know of would be very appreciated.
Thanks everyone. God bless you.

[pandy]

A preprocessor is an app, isn't it?

Not necessarily. PHP can be a preprocessor. I haven't played enough with XML to be able to give any specific advice, pretty much confused myself, but you will need programming, even if not a program in the sense you mean. Something on the server must read from the XML file, grab what it wants and do something with it, right?

Not sure what this does, but take a look.
http://php.net/xml

[Brian Chandler]

A preprocessor is an app, isn't it?

Not necessarily. PHP can be a preprocessor. I haven't played enough with XML to be able to give any specific advice, pretty much confused myself, but you will need programming, even if not a program in the sense you mean. Something on the server must read from the XML file, grab what it wants and do something with it, right?

What's an "App"? Just an (application) program? Then PHP is certainly an "app". But is it a "preprocessor"? Well, usually that means something that processes something before the More Important Other Thing processes it, in which case... hmm, any answer seems just about equally as meaningless as any other.

But yes, the basic point the OP is missing is that XML is just a way of representing (or storing, if you like) structured information.

Not sure what this does, but take a look.
http://php.net/xml

Well, it's the PHP library of functions for handling XML. But storing your website content in XML is going to be a bigger job than storing it in a database, and most hosts seem to provide PHP+MySQL (or equivalent) as standard these days, so what's the point?

This post has been edited by Brian Chandler: Oct 23 2008, 02:44 PM

[Darin McGrew]

I am reminded of the story of Mel.

Anyway, the preprocessor that I use is written in Perl, so I've been able to make small changes when necessary. But I'm not sure what you're really asking for at this point.