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[wxWidgets.git] / docs / tech / tn0014.txt

                      XRC resources format specification
                      ==================================

                         !!!!! NOT YET FINISHED !!!!!

0. Introduction
---------------

This note describes the file format used for storing XRC resources that are
used by wxXmlResource class. It is probably only useful for those implementing
dialog editors with XRC support.

If you only want to use the resources, you can choose from a number of editors:
  a) wxDesigner (http://www.roebling.de)
  b) XRCed (wxPython/tools)
  c) wxWorkshop (http://wxworkshop.sf.net)
  b) wxrcedit (contrib/utils/wxrcedit)

The XRC format is based on XML 1.0 (please consult W3C's specification). There
is no DTD available since it is not possible to fully describe the format with
the limited expressive power of DTDs.

1. Terminology
--------------

The usual XML terminology applies. In particular, we shall use the terms 
"node", "property" and "value" in the XML sense:

    <node property1="value1" property2="value2">...</node>

The term "attribute" is specific to XRC and refers to a property-less subnode 
of an <object> or <object_ref> node. In the example bellow, <pos>, <label> and
<style> are attributes, while neither <resource> nor either of <object>s is:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8">
    <resource xmlns="http://www.wxwindows.org/wxxrc" version="2.3.0.1">
        <object class="wxPanel">
            <style>wxSUNKEN_BORDER</style>
            <object class="wxStaticText">
                <label>A label</label>
                <pos>10,10</pos>
            </object>
        </object>
    </resource>

2. Elementary description
-------------------------

XRC resource file is a well-formed XML 1.0 document. All elements of XRC file are
from the http://www.wxwindows.org/wxxrc namespace. 

The root node of XRC document must be <resource>. The <resource> node has 
optional "version" property. Default version  (in absence of the version 
property) is "0.0.0.0". The version consists of four integers separated by 
periods. Version of XRC format changes only if there was an incompatible 
change introduced (i.e. either the library cannot understand old resource 
files or older versions of the library wouldn't understand the new format).
The first three integers are major, minor and release number of the wxWindows 
release when the change was introduced, the last one is revision number and 
is 0 for the first incompatible change in given wxWindows release, 1 for 
the second etc.

Differences between versions are described within this document in paragraphs
entitled "Version Note". 

The <resource> node contains namespace declaration, too:

    <resource xmlns="http://www.wxwindows.org/wxxrc" version="2.3.0.1">

The <resource> node is only allowed to have <object> and <object_ref>
subnodes, all of which must have the "name" property.

<object> - TODO (name, class, subclass)

<object_ref> - TODO (name, ref, subclass)


3. Common attributes
--------------------

TODO

4. Supported classes
--------------------

TODO

=== EOF ===

Version: $Id$