microsoft / microsoft/XmlNotepad

Expandable IDREFs

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Dominant language
C#
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Description

The ID and IDREF/IDREFS XML data types are often used to "point" to data that exists elsewhere. It is often advantageous to define something once and reference it as need. However, this introduces a level of indirection that makes it difficult to quickly inspect XML and determine its logical meaning.

I am proposing an enhancement to XmlNotepad to address this. When a IDREF/IDREFS is encountered that points to one or more defined IDs, instead of appearing as an attribute/element, it would appear as a folder (like element-only tags currently do). This folder would contain the the tags referenced by IDREF/IDREFs.

Access to the nodes could be handled by constructing a Dictionary<IDREF, XmlNode> during schema validation.

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the schema-validation path and the tree rendering logic for IDREF/IDREFS and element-only tags. Confirm how referenced IDs are resolved, then define completion as showing resolved referenced nodes inside an expandable folder while preserving normal attribute or element behavior when no target is found.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
csharp
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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