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Creating XML iViewsLocate this document in the navigation structure

Use

The portal provides a dedicated wizard, editor, and iView template enabling you to rapidly create iViews which retrieve content directly from an XML source on the Web. In the portal, these types of iViews are referred to as XML iViews .

Caution

Legal Aspects of XML iViews

Content on external Web sites is typically protected by copyright law. These copyright laws prohibit the copying, redistribution, retransmission, or publication of material, unless otherwise permitted by the copyright owner. In the event publication of copyrighted material is permitted, other restrictions apply with regard to the modification or omission of author attribution, copyright notice, or trademark legends.

It is therefore the responsibility of your organization to determine if the content displayed on your portal does not infringe or violate any such copyright laws. Unlawful use of the works of others may lead to substantial civil and criminal penalties.

Note

Another type of iView, which also retrieves Web-based content via a direct URL, but in HTML format, is referred to as a URL iView . For more information, see Creating Web-based URL iViews .

Recommendation

If your company uses a network proxy server to control Internet access and you intend to create iViews that display content outside the company domain, you need to configure the HTTPService proxy service in the portal. This is also necessary to see Web content when using the browse capabilities in the XML iView Editor and Wizard. For instructions, see Defining a Proxy Server for the Portal .

Features

XML on its own is not particularly useful, unless an application is able to interpret the XML document's structure and data. For this purpose, SAP has developed a service (called the Transformation Service ) and a number of standard XML parsers (called XML transformers ), which support the following input XML formats:

RSS

RSS is a standardized XML format for syndicating Web-based content. Today, RSS is generally used for weblogs and content of a news-type nature shared by popular Web sites. Typically, desktop applications called aggregators or news readers enable users to gather RSS feeds in a single location. The portal can now be used to bring RSS feeds into the portal in the form of XML iViews.

For more information, see RSS-to-XHTMLB Transformer .

Busdoc

Busdoc is a SAP-owned XML format, which is supported by .NET iViews in SAP Enterprise Portal 5.0. In the SAP Enterprise Portal 6.0, you can create XML iViews from a source that returns Busdoc XML, which is then transformed on-the-fly into a portal iView.

For more information, see Busdoc XML-to-XHTMLB Transformer

The standard XML transformers shipped with the portal are able to transform these XML formats to a SAP-proprietary format, XHTMLB. An additional XML transformer converts XHTMLB to HTMLB. HTMLB is supported by the portal runtime and can be displayed in iViews. HTMLB is also rendered at runtime in the look and feel of the portal, thus providing an overall streamlined look to the portal desktop and its content.

It also possible to assign more than one XML transformer to an iView in order to generate a linear transformation including several XML formats. For example: Start of the navigation path <input format> Next navigation step <intermediary format 1> Next navigation step <intermediary format 2> Next navigation step <final output format> End of the navigation path. This is referred to as a transformation pipe .

Note

You can enhance the standard XML transformers, develop custom-made XML transformers to support other XML formats, and integrate them into the portal. For more information, see Transformation Service in the Developer's Guide.

Process

To create an XML iView, you first need to define its basic settings in the XML iView Wizard, and then use the XML iView Editor to define more advanced settings (not available in the wizard) and modify the basic settings, if needed.

Using the XML iView Wizard

  1. Select the URL returning an XML source on the Web. See Using the XML iView Wizard .

  2. Choose an appropriate XML transformer based on the input XML format and the desired output format. See Using the XML iView Wizard .

Using the XML iView Editor

  1. Modify the URL to XML source on the Web, if needed. See Selecting the XML Source .

  2. Configure URL parameters. See Configuring URL Parameters .

  3. Choose additional XML transformers or remove ones previously selected. See Defining the XML Transformation .

  4. Configure parameters associated with each XML transformer. See Standard XML Transformers and Parameters .

  5. Select a system for user mapping. See Selecting a System .

  6. Configure iView properties. See XML iView Properties .