News:

SMF 2.1.4 has been released! Take it for a spin! Read more.

Main Menu

XML help file being corrupted by Dreamweaver

Started by archiebald, June 22, 2005, 01:31:13 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

archiebald

Can anyone help me here please!!!

I am arranging the translation of the help files into Japanese with the help of my assistant.  We have completed all the xml file translation except for one.

The file in question is "posting.english.xml", it is 40KB in size.

When we open it in Dreamweaver, some re-formatting is being automatically done to the file which is causing errors.  We have noticed the following symptoms.

1) If we immediately save it before any modifications, we find that it goes up in size from 40KB to 43KB.
2) Whereas the original file can be opened in IE or Firefox to view and debug the translation, the "damaged" file gives the following errors.
IE - "A name was started with an invalid character. Error processing resource 'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/..."
Firefox - "XML Parsing Error: not well-formed
Location: file:///c:/....[file path deleted].../posting.english.xml
Line Number 315, Column 7:               &<<!-- no content -->
------^"

3) When the original file is opened in Notepad, the page formatting and line breaks are not fixed, it looks a real mess.  But in Dreamweaver and in Notepad (after saving) the file has its line breaks corrected.
4) Why don't we just edit in notepad? - because the aforementioned line breaks issue makes it REALLY difficult to view and edit.

We have also tried to use a freeware editor called Cooktop 2.5 but this had a serious issue with handling the Japanese fonts so we had to give up.

The only thing I see special in this file is that one or two text lines are VERY long. 

I have tried the Dreamweaver support with no success, even tried upgrading to 6.1, then installing the latest v7.01 demo version (previously was using v6.0)

Can anyone suggest an XML editor that may work?

I have attached the "saved" version of the file if anyone wants to check it out.

[Unknown]

I'm afraid Dreamweaver has a history of doing this to PHP files as well.

I would use a different editor, like ConTEXT, UltraEdit, or etc.  In fact, there was an editor specifically meant to edit Japanese files I used once.

I can also translate the line breaks for you, if you like.

-[Unknown]

4LP3RUZ1

I used MS WordXP, works just fine and does spell checking for Turkish too!
Frozen frogs are back :(

archiebald

alperuzi,
Thanks for the tip on MSword.  In Word2003, the file can be opened in such a way that the text can be easily edited but the tags are locked out to prevent accidental erasure of an < or >.  In fact, all the code that is NOT enclosed by start and finish tags is hidden.  This makes it really easy for my non-technical assistant to proceed with no fear of mistakes.

MSword2000 can also open it cleanly but the tags and code appear as standard text, plus all the text is the same color.

Unknown - thanks for the tips, I'll try the editors you mentioned as a backup.


archiebald

#4
Regarding ConTEXT,
It looks really nice (and very cheap  :D ) but unfortunately this is still not available for utf-8 encoding (as informed here http://forum.context.cx/index.php?topic=349.0 )  Is that the same "Unknown" I wonder  ;D

Now going to check on UltraEdit

archiebald

Just checked out UltraEdit,

45 day free trial or $39.95 to register. 

It works.  Click on the FILE menu, select Conversions then select ASCII to UTF-8 (Unicode Editing)

I guess we'll be using the MSWord method for now, but it is good to know about the alternatives.

Thanks again  ;D

Archie

[Unknown]

Quote from: archiebald on June 28, 2005, 03:13:52 AM
Regarding ConTEXT,
It looks really nice (and very cheap  :D ) but unfortunately this is still not available for utf-8 encoding (as informed here http://forum.context.cx/index.php?topic=349.0 )  Is that the same "Unknown" I wonder  ;D

Now going to check on UltraEdit

Well, I thought it had support for UTF-16 or some other encodings.

-[Unknown]

Advertisement: