Microsoft CDF Generator

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Microsoft® CDF Generator is an easy-to-use, highly efficient tool for the creation of Channel Definition Format (CDF) files.

• It has a simple and intuitive graphical interface.
• It doesn't require previous knowledge of channels.
• It supports all CDF tags.
• It supports UTF-8 encoding.
• It can also be used for testing purposes because it parses the CDF files and detects the errors.
• It supports drag-and-drop operations.

Note Microsoft CDF Generator is able to parse a Channel Definition Format file only if Microsoft® Internet Explorer 4.0 or later is installed on your computer.

You can download Microsoft CDF Generator from MSDN Online.

This article covers the following topics:

• The User Interface
• Creating a New CDF
• Opening and Modifying Existing and New CDF Files
  • Adding Elements
  • Modifying Elements
  • Deleting Elements
• Other Options

The User Interface

The user interface of Microsoft CDF Generator consists of two main parts.

• Tree pane. The left side of the main window includes a hierarchical representation of the channel definition format that you are creating. By default all the elements are visible, but you have the option to hide some of the elements.
• Code pane. The right side of the main window shows the complete code of the file. Any change in the tree pane is automatically reflected in the code pane.

Creating a New CDF File

Selecting New from the File menu will automatically launch a sequence of the five wizards that you can use to add elements or attributes to your channel. See the following section on wizards for more information.

Pages You Will Find in the Wizards

Each one of the wizards shows a subset of pages where you can specify the different attributes of the element you are adding.

1. The General - CHANNEL - Information page
   • HREF: the URL for the top page of the channel (select attribute or anchor type)
   • BASE: the URL or root of the site where the channel is published (used for resolving relative paths)
   • SELF: The URL where the CDF will be published (full, including the name of the CDF)
   
   
2. The General - ITEM - Information page
   • HREF: the URL for the item that you are adding (select attribute or anchor type)
   • Last Modified date (ISO date, time, time zone format)
   • Number of LEVELs to crawl the ITEM's links
   • Whether the item should be pre-cached (check box)
   • The USAGE element in the ITEM element section
   
   
3. The - Common - Child elements page

   Select the check box of the elements that you want to associate with the channel and type in their respective properties:

   • Title: the title of the channel, a short text description that will appear as a ToolTip or when the user selects to see it in the channel changer
   • Abstract: a text description (a maximum of two sentences is recommended) describing the content of the channel, to be used as a ToolTip or in channel guides
   • Log: type of events that you want to have logged for tracking purposes
   
   
4. The Logos information

   Select the check box, and type in the URL of the logos that you want to represent a channel or an item:

   • Icon: URL to the .ico, .gif or .jpg file that will be used when viewing large icons in the channel changer
   • Image: URL to the .gif or .jpg (80x32) file that will be used by default in the desktop channel bar
   • Wide: URL to the .gif or .jpg (194x32) file that will be used in the browser channel changer

   Note Logo changes will not be detected unless the URL of the logo changes.

   
   
5. The Schedule page

   Toggle the top-level check box to select if you want to have a delivery schedule associated with your channel. If you do want a schedule, edit the schedule dates and the delivery timings sections according to your preferences.

6. The Log Target page

   Again, check or uncheck the element depending on your preferences, and edit the characteristics of your tracking notifications.

7. The Authentication or LOGIN page

   This speaks for itself.

Opening and Modifying Existing and New CDF Files

Microsoft CDF Generator needs to be installed on a machine with Internet Explorer 4.0 because it uses COM objects of that browser to parse existing files.

To open an existing file, simply select Open from the File menu and point to the CDF file. If an error occurs, or if the CDF file contains errors and cannot be parsed, a dialog box with information appears.

Once you have defined a channel (just created or opened) you can add, modify, or delete any element in the CDF file. This is explained in the following section.

Adding Elements

There are three ways of doing this.

1. Through the main menu. To add an item to a channel, select that channel in the tree pane. Then, on the main menu, select Tag, then New, and then Item.
2. By right-clicking on the element that you want to modify. To add an item to a channel, right-click on that channel in the tree pane and select New and then Item from the context menu.
3. Through a drag-and-drop operation. You can drag URL links, links from a Web page (<A> - anchor tags) opened in Internet Explorer browser, small icons beside the address of the currently opened page in your browser, and so on. These objects must be dropped into the channel element of Microsoft CDF Generator that will be its parent. This will launch the Item Wizard and insert the address of the link you opened into the appropriate box in the Wizard.

Microsoft CDF Generator is intelligent in the sense that it will not let you add a child element twice if only one child element of that kind is supported for that element. For example, if you have already added a title to a channel, it will not display the TITLE element as an option in the menu. Or, when you add a subchannel to a channel it will not even display the schedule page in the wizard.

Modifying Elements

Simply double-click (or right-click and select Properties) on the element that you want to modify, and then type the new values into the appropriate boxes.

Deleting Elements

Click on the element that you want to delete and press the Delete key, or right-click and select Delete.

Other Options

Opening a Remote CDF File

To download and open an existing file from the Web, select Open (URL) from the File menu and type the URL of the CDF file you want to open.

Note You will not be able to save this file back to the Web server. Save it on your local drive instead.

Manual Editing

You can manually edit a CDF file in the Code Pane. To do that, select Edit Mode from the View menu. The content of the tree pane will be destroyed and rebuilt again when you exit the Edit Mode.

Testing Your CDF File

Select Test from the Tag menu, and all the child elements of the currently selected item in the tree pane will be recursively tested.

Note Only the visible elements are tested.

Encoding (UTF-8)

Microsoft CDF Generator allows users to save files in UTF-8 format by converting the text using UTF-8 encoding standards. Select View and then Options from the main menu, and in the General page, type UTF-8 in the encoding field.

Note All HTML character sets are valid in this field (such as windows-1250, big5, and so on).

Visibility

If a channel includes a large number of subchannels and items, the tree pane can become overpopulated, making the structure hard to follow. To improve performance, the user can hide any tag in the tree pane. Select View and then Options from the main menu, and in the Advanced page, clear the check boxes beside the tags that should be hidden.

Note If the channel tag is hidden, the tree pane disappears.

Reordering

New elements inserted into the CDF file are inserted according to an internal sort order. If you want to modify the order of an element, drag that element and drop it onto the element that should come after it in the order.