Setting Up the XML Editing Environment

For today's project, you'll be taking on the role of a Human Resources staff member at the University of the Midwest who's responsible for posting job listings. Your task will be to create an XML file that will be used to store current job openings and display them on its web site. You'll be starting with a plain text file that contains some job listings, which will then be marked up with XML so it can then be displayed as part of the human resources website. Before you get started with creating XML, let's set up your XML editing environment.

You don't need any special software to create an XML document. Since XML is stored as plain text, even a simple text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit can be used to create XML. More complicated projects might necessitate the use of an XML editor, which is a program solely dedicated to editing XML and files related to XML and provide additional features such as file management and document validation. oXygen XML Editor is an example of an XML-specific editor. For today, you'll be making use of a code editor, which will highlight the code that's added to the document and highlight coding errors as you construct your XML document. Examples of code editors include the following applications:

• Notepad++ (Windows)
• Brackets (Windows, MacOS, Linux)
• BBEdit (MacOS)

While this course was developed using Notepad++ on Windows, the instructions should work the same in any of the code editors listed, as well as in code editors developed for mobile devices.  You can also use a text editor to follow through the content, such as Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on MacOS.

Let's go ahead and open up a code editor, then open the file you'll be working with today. Once the file is open, before continuing on, you'll need to save it as an XML file.

NOTE: The following steps assume that you have downloaded the exercise files and extracted them to the desktop of your computer.  If you extracted your files to a different location, subsititute the location of your extracted files for the desktop in the following instructions.

Now the job posting document is open, and has been saved as an XML file.  As you can see, it contains two current job openings. Each job has a title, salary, minimum and preferred qualifications, and the starting date for each job.  You'll be using this information to help you construct the XML you'll use to mark up the file. Before you start creating XML, however, it's best to learn the rules of XML syntax to make sure your document is properly structured.