Creating/Administrering XML-Datase for Adobe illustrator CS?

[Olavxxx]

Hi,

I wish to create / administer XML for Adobe illustrator CS, from vb.net

After some googling, looking at the XML document, etc. I think it's called XAML?

Anyhow, I wish to create a "xml dataset" for the illustrator and after googling for while, I found no examples which where relevant for illustrator cs and vb.net

I tried using regular XML functions, but I get an error about stylesheet, due to the ":"'s in the xml-sheet.

This is how the XML looks:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 20001102//EN"    "[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-SVG-20001102/DTD/svg-20001102.dtd"[/URL] [
	<!ENTITY ns_graphs "[URL unfurl="true"]http://ns.adobe.com/Graphs/1.0/">[/URL]
	<!ENTITY ns_vars "[URL unfurl="true"]http://ns.adobe.com/Variables/1.0/">[/URL]
	<!ENTITY ns_imrep "[URL unfurl="true"]http://ns.adobe.com/ImageReplacement/1.0/">[/URL]
	<!ENTITY ns_custom "[URL unfurl="true"]http://ns.adobe.com/GenericCustomNamespace/1.0/">[/URL]
	<!ENTITY ns_flows "[URL unfurl="true"]http://ns.adobe.com/Flows/1.0/">[/URL]
<!ENTITY ns_extend "[URL unfurl="true"]http://ns.adobe.com/Extensibility/1.0/">[/URL]
]>
<svg>
<variableSets  xmlns="&ns_vars;">
	<variableSet  varSetName="binding1" locked="none">
		<variables>
			<variable  varName="o1" trait="textcontent" category="&ns_flows;"></variable>
			<variable  varName="o2" trait="textcontent" category="&ns_flows;"></variable>
			<variable  varName="pa" trait="textcontent" category="&ns_flows;"></variable>
			<variable  varName="ta" trait="textcontent" category="&ns_flows;"></variable>
			<variable  varName="text" trait="textcontent" category="&ns_flows;"></variable>
		</variables>
		<v:sampleDataSets  xmlns="[URL unfurl="true"]http://ns.adobe.com/GenericCustomNamespace/1.0/"[/URL] xmlns:v="[URL unfurl="true"]http://ns.adobe.com/Variables/1.0/">[/URL]
			<v:sampleDataSet  dataSetName="Haha 1">
				<o1>
					<p>yes - no</p>
				</o1>
				<o2>
					<p>some text here</p>
				</o2>
				<pa>
					<p>foobar</p>
				</pa>
				<ta>
					<p>some bar</p>
				</ta>
				<text>
					<p>
						a lot of foo  
						</p>
				</text>
			</v:sampleDataSet>
		</v:sampleDataSets>
	</variableSet>
</variableSets>
</svg>

I need someone to "kick me" in the right direction..
Some samples of how to read/write in such an xml-document would be nice..

Also, if someone knows if illustrator has some "bottlenecks" on large xml-datafiles, that would be nice to know..

I'm thinking there are several sollutions for this:
1) Read and Write in the XAML(?) format that Adobe uses
2) Write in a regular XML file and then export to the XAML? (messy?)
3) Write in an access db and then export to XAML..

I would think that using the XAML format is nice, as the fields/variables are defined in the document itself and therefore it would be easier to dynamically expand/contract the number of variables for each sampleDataSet?

Eg. row 1 might have a different number of variables than row2.. I guess this might be easier using the XAML than, let's say MS Access?

I tried playing with code, like so:
[Dim carLotItems As System.Xml.XmlNodeList = carlotDoc.SelectNodes("svg/blah/blah")[/code]

Only it said my stylesheet was missing or some kind of error. I also got errors, if I tried accessing nodes with colon in them ( v:sampleDataSets )

I hope someone can help me, as I'm both new to .net and stuck, at the same time :S

Olav Alexander Mjelde

http://www.volvo-power.net

Admin & Webmaster