Dreamweaver

Display repeating XML elements

The Repeating Region XSLT object lets you display repeating elements from an XML data source in a web page. For example, if you are displaying article titles and descriptions from a news feed, and that news feed contains between 10 and 20 articles, each title and description in the XML file would probably be a child element of a repeating element.

Any region in Design view containing an XML data placeholder can be changed to a repeated region. However, the most common regions are tables, table rows, or a series of table rows.

  1. In Design view, select a region that contains an XML data placeholder or placeholders.

    The selection can be anything, including a table, a table row, or even a paragraph of text.

    Select a region on the page

    To select a region on the page precisely, you can use the tag selector in the lower-left corner of the Document window. For example, if the region is a table, click inside the table on the page, and then click the tag in the tag selector.
  2. Do one of the following

    • Select Insert > XSLT Objects > Repeating Region.

    • In the XSLT category of the Insert bar, click the Repeating Region button.

  3. In the XPath Expression Builder, select the repeating element, indicated by a small plus sign.
    Select the repeating element in the XPath Expression Builder

  4. Click OK.

    In the Document window, a thin, tabbed, gray outline appears around the repeated region. When you preview your work in a browser (File > Preview in Browser), the gray outline disappears and the selection expands to display the specified repeating elements in the XML file.

    When you add the Repeating Region XSLT object to the page, the XML data placeholder in the Document window is truncated. This is because Dreamweaver truncates the XPath for the XML data placeholder so that it is relative to the path of the repeating element.

Set Repeating Region (XSL) properties

In the Property inspector, you can select a different XML node to create the repeating region.

 In the Select box, enter a new node, and then press the lightning bolt icon and select the node from the XML schema tree that appears.

Edit a Repeating Region XSLT object

After you’ve added a Repeating Region XSLT object to a region, you can edit it using the Property inspector.

  1. Select the object by clicking the gray tab that surrounds the repeated region.
  2. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), click the dynamic icon next to the Select text field.
  3. In the XPath Expression Builder, make your changes and click OK.