Document XML structure overview

The easiest way to examine the end result of CHILI's own serialization is to create a new document, and check out its saved XML in a browser or an XML editor (depending on your preference).

The basic principles of the XML format used by CHILI are described in ?General XML Concepts, but just taking a look at the generated XML (in addition to the rest of the documentation) can also teach you a lot. We strive to create XML structures which are not only consistend, but also (relatively) easy to read, using logical naming conventions and structures.

Skipping over many other objects (and oversimplifying), a document's XML tree could be simplified as containing:

document
- layers
- colors
- paragraphStyles
- characterStyles
- fonts
- alternateLayouts
- pages
  - page
    - sectionOptions
    - frames
      - frame
    - annotations
      - annotation

NOTE: this is enormously simplified, almost any level within this tree has the possibility of more sub-objects. But it does demonstrate the basic skeleton of a simple document containing the most common resources

To get an existing document's XML for debugging purposes, you can:

Use the "Info" Panel in CHILI's backoffice (Document Management > Select a document > "Info" tab on the right), where you can request "Object XML" through the matching button
Go to the server itself, where the CHILI document exists as an actual xml file (DATA_DIR\Environments\ENVIRONMENT_NAME\Resources\Documents\DIRECTORY_OF_DOCUMENT\DOCUMENT_NAME.xml)
Use the API (?Webservice Functions - ResourceItemGetXML)