extensibility

The Overview Pane


The Overview pane provides a command center from which you can control the creation of schemas that use multiple modules, as well as explore the overall organization of your schema. The Overview pane's tools let you build schemas from declarations in multiple files, creating large composite schemas from sets of smaller ones, enhancing reusability and simplifying management.

The Overview pane (Figure A) provides a tree-like overview of the schema structure. In the example shown in Figure A, the DDML schema (available in the Samples directory) is shown. In the initial view, all of the declarations included directly in that schema are shown, with included modules indicated separately.

Overview Pane

Figure A - The Overview Pane (shown with the Element Types Pane)

To see the contents of an included module, just click the plus sign to the left of the module name (ibtwsh in this case) to see its contents, as shown below in Figure B.

Overview Pane

Figure B - Exploring a contained module

The Overview pane is the primary place to assemble schemas from multiple modules. To add a file containing schema declarations to your schema, click Add Module... at the top of the pane and select the file. To remove a module, right-click on the module and select Cut from the pop-up menu that appears as shown below in Figure C.

Overview Pane

Figure C - Context-sensitive menus let you manage declarations in the Overview Pane

From the pop-up menu, you can cut, copy, and paste a declaration or module (removing it or changing its location in the schema).  There is also an option to "Go to", which will take you to an area to edit the selected item.  If the item is a declaration, you'll move to the element type list where you can change the declaration.   This process is a bit more sophisticated for included modules. If you right-click on the parameter entity for a module and 'Go to' it, you can directly edit the parameter entity declaration it represents (you're taken to the Parameter Entities tab of the Advanced pane).  The last pop-up menu option allows you to unlock a module if you want to edit the declarations inside an inclusion.  XML Authority will keep track of your changes and let you save changes back to the module (if, of course, you have the privileges to do so.) When you're done editing the included declarations, you can right-click on the module and lock it again. The declarations from included modules will once again be marked with the icon, and you won't be able to edit them. The Overview pane also allows you to rearrange declarations using drag-and-drop.

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