The user interface (GUI) of XMLmind XML Editor is made of parts. Parts are high level building blocks such as menus, menu bars, tool bars, status bars, actions (for use in menus, tool bars and status bars), etc.
These parts are declared in a special GUI specification file having a .xxe_gui
suffix. Such GUI specification files also contain a layout
element which specifies which assembly of parts to use to create the user interface of XMLmind XML Editor.
Example (excerpts of default.xxe_gui):
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <gui xmlns="http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/schema/gui" xmlns:gui="http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/schema/gui" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/schema/gui ../../../addon/config/gui/xsd/gui.xsd"> ... <action name="newAction" label="_New..."icon="icons/newAction.gif" accelerator="mod N"> <class>com.xmlmind.xmleditapp.kit.part.NewAction</class> </action> ... <menu name="fileMenu" label="_File"
helpId="fileMenu"> <action name="newAction" /> <action name="openAsTemplateAction" /> ... <menuItems name="recentFilesMenuItems" /> </menu> ... <menuBar name="menuBar" helpId="menuBar">
<menu name="fileMenu" /> <menu name="selectMenu" /> ... </menuBar> ... <layout width="850" height="650">
<menuBar name="menuBar" />
... </layout> </gui>
Declaring a part does not mean that this part will be created and then, displayed in the GUI of XXE. For this to happen, a part must be referenced directly or indirectly[1] by the layout
element of the GUI specification file.
Xxe_app.jar
, the archive file containing the code of XMLmind XML Editor (XXE for short), also contains 2 GUI specifications:
/gui/app/default.xxe_gui
Specifies the default user interface of XMLmind XML Editor.
/gui/app/simple.xxe_gui
Specifies a somewhat simpler user interface which could be preferred by some users.
A copy of these files is found in
. This, because using default.xxe_gui as a reference when creating custom GUIs for XXE is absolutely required.XXE_install_dir
/doc/gui/gui/app/
If you want to see by yourself the effect of using simple.xxe_gui (instead of default default.xxe_gui), please proceed as follows:
Open a command prompt.
Change working directory to the directory where XXE has been installed (typically C:\Program Files\XMLmind_XML_Editor\
).
Change to subdirectory bin\
where xxe.exe
(and xxe.bat
) are found.
Set environment variable XXE_GUI
as follows:
C:\Program Files\XMLmind_XML_Editor\bin> set XXE_GUI=xxe-gui:app/simple.xxe_gui
Start XXE as follows:
C:\Program Files\XMLmind_XML_Editor\bin> xxe.exe
bash
)Open a terminal.
Change working directory to the directory where XXE has been installed (example: /opt/xxe/
).
Change to subdirectory bin\
where the xxe
shell script is found.
Set environment variable XXE_GUI
as follows[2]:
/opt/xxe/bin$ XXE_GUI=xxe-gui:app/simple.xxe_gui; export XXE_GUI
Start XXE as follows:
/opt/xxe/bin$ ./xxe &
Don't worry, all this will be detailed in the deployment chapter of this document.