Some basic facts about XML (eXtensible Markup Language) |
The external xml file is loaded by the flash chart movie and is used to customize and to manipulate the charts. The xml structure is easy to understand even for absolute beginners after viewing the demo xml file. The specified tags are akin to html. Here are a few facts:
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special char | encoding | Description | |||
< | < | The less-than character is in use by XML itself as first character of a start-tag or an end-tag. Thus do encode it to render it e.g. as part of a string! | |||
> | > | The greater-than character is in use by XML to end a start-tag or an end-tag. | |||
& | & | The ampersand character is in use by XML for entity markup. | |||
" | " | Use this character sequence to render a double-quote character inside an already double-quoted xml string. | |||
' | ' or ' | An apostrophe or single-quote character can be rendered with this character sequence inside an already single-quoted xml string. |
The various XML attributes used by the chart's flash movie consist of these types: boolean numeric string and color. |
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There are a lot of properties and values depending on the chart type that one can set. However, it is not necessary to set all the possible attributes for a single chart. If you do not intend to change the default values of the canvas (color alpha etc.) than you don't need to set any attributes for the canvas - the pre-assigned default attributes will take over automatically. Thus, each chart can be generated using only a few attributes without concern for each and every finer detail. There are specific XML structures for each chart. We define the XML structure into two types depending on the chart type:
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Note, no first line like <?xml version="1.0"?> is really needed for the chart's xml file to work properly! |