New QXML DOM schema immediately opens QuarkXPress file format for open standard XML reading; next version of QXML to allow writing.
At Macworld San Francisco yesterday Quark, Inc. introduced QXML, the QuarkXPress Markup Langauge, an XML schema of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Document Object Model (DOM) that enables developers to create custom XTensions software for XPress. The QXML schema fully describes the QuarkXPress file format in XML and enables QuarkXPress 6.5 XTensions software to be developed using industry standards and a wide variety of development platforms and languages, including C++, Java, .Net supported languages C# and VB.Net, and scripting languages AppleScript, Perl, JScript, and VBScript. In the past, XTensions developers were limited to coding in C or C++.
“While C and C++ are powerful development languages, developers now use a wide variety of development languages. Porting software from other applications and platforms to and from C and C++ can be a lengthy and cost-prohibitive task,” explained QuarkXPress Product Manager Tim Banister. “The creation of QXML radically changes the landscape for XTensions development and lets a brand-new group of developers create custom XTensions software for QuarkXPress – and with it, an even wider variety of solutions for our customers. Quark is absolutely committed to open standards, and this demonstrates the strength of that commitment.”
Based on the W3C Document Object Model (DOM) standard, which provides a language-neutral interface for applications and scripts to dynamically access and update content, structure, and styling of documents, QXML presents a QuarkXPress project as an XML tree, and any modifications to the XML files change the QuarkXPress project in real time.
With QXML developers can dynamically access and update the content, structure, and even style of a QuarkXPress project using a DOM interface. XTensions modules can be more versatile because they can use a project’s complete content, including all formatting, style sheets, hyphenation, and justification specifications. Additionally, developers can run powerful query expressions with just a few lines of code using XPath queries. The same query using C/C++ code would require pages of code.
“For many years, valuable content has been locked in proprietary file formats, while the move towards multi-channel publishing has dictated that it can no longer be used just for print,” said Juergen Kurz, Quark’s vice president of product development. “With an industry-standard methodology for describing the QuarkXPress file format, our customers have greater security because their QuarkXPress content can be easily integrated into today’s complex multi-channel publishing environments.”
As an example of QXML use, Quark suggested a publisher with a Java application that uses a Web services protocol to pull TV listings information onto a Web site, then uses QXML to automatically insert the data in a press-ready QuarkXPress project file for TV listings within a weekly magazine.
The QXML developer kit is available on the QuarkAlliance XTensions developer website immediately to certified QuarkXPress XTensions developers. Developers can choose to develop XTensions modules using the QuarkXPress XTensions Developer Kit (XDK), QXML, or both.