but your husband got a sweet new job...

Will no one think of the children?!?

I mean, since there are still plenty of people out there running Leopard who might still want to upgrade to Lion?

Well, they are saying Snow Leopard is a requirement for the upgrade, so they may be going that route. One thing though, the family pricing just went down. The download will allow up to 10 machines to install the upgrade.

Well, they are saying Snow Leopard is a requirement for the upgrade, so they may be going that route.

I *really* hope they wouldn't remove the option for people to wipe the old machine and do a clean install of the new OS.

I have a really, really basic question.

I know nothing of XML files, particularly how to create them. Our Web host (who is THE DEVIL) told us today that we need to send an XML file with all our article files every month. They even gave us the example (code? text? I don't even know what it's called) of what the file needs to say, and what variable changes every issue.

I do not know HOW to make an XML file. I pasted the text (code?) into Word 2004, and there's no save as XML option.

I'm on a Mac, 10.4.11 (Tiger), with Word 2004, Quark XPress 6.5, Acrobat 8.

I have TextEdit that comes with the Mac, and it does have a Save As Word XML option. When I do that, though, and then open it in Word, there's WAY more code (text?) than the original chunk of code (text?).

So...how do I make a frigging XML file?

This sounds like something that needs to be scripted, and not something you would want to do manually. Seriously.

Scripted...how? I mean, in a program, right? Or not? Well, everything is in a program, isn't it?

It's just 7 lines (I, uh, changed all the pointy brackets to regular brackets because I know the pointy ones break things):

[?xml version="1.0"?]
[!DOCTYPE HWExpress PUBLIC "-//HIGHWIRE//DTD HighWire Express Marker DTD v1.1.2HW//EN" "marker.dtd"]
[HWExpress type="issue"]
[site]pharmther[/site]
[volume]45[/volume]
[issue]6[/issue]
[/HWExpress]

And the "site," "volume," and "issue" lines are indented; I just didn't know how to do that here.

The only thing that ever will change is the issue number (and in Janary, the volume number).

So...how would I script that? (I don't actually know what scripting is.)

When I say "script", I mean, someone writes a small program to automate generating the file, so that you don't have to manually edit the file. But if it's just those seven lines, then it's not a big deal.

First of all, the indentation doesn't matter. Second of all, it's just a text file; you can just edit, and save it as a .TXT file. However, there are a bunch of rules you have to follow to make sure the file is syntactically correct.

However, there are a bunch of rules you have to follow to make sure the file is syntactically correct.

Well, I just copied it verbatim from what they sent us. Would what they sent us be syntactically correct?

Second of all, it's just a text file; you can just edit, and save it as a .TXT file.

They want it to be named "foo.xml," though. Which would be...not a .txt file, right?

I hate them so much.

Well, I just copied it verbatim from what they sent us. Would what they sent us be syntactically correct?

Yes.

They want it to be named "foo.xml," though. Which would be...not a .txt file, right?

You can rename the file to be foo.txt, edit it, and then rename it back to foo.xml when you're done. Alternatively, you can just open the file in TextEdit using the "Open" menu item.

Cool. I'ma try that and see if it works for them.

Thank you SO much. My brain hurts.