A.1 Understanding and Accessing the XML Editor

The XML Editor provides a user interface for creating and editing XML files. Menu options and click+drag actions can be used to add, remove, and rearrange XML elements. Viewing elements and attributes in a tree structure without the coding characters used in the XML raw text format makes it easier to work with the XML elements in the XML Editor.

The XML Editor can be used to edit adapter hierarchy files and is available through the Operations Center Console. XML files are commonly used to:

  • Edit adapter hierarchy files.

    Some management systems cannot identify the discrete element origins of the events that they generate. Moreover, these managers do not have the capacity to sort the events into a relationship structure that users can easily understand.

    The HierarchyFile is a Operations Center mechanism used by an adapter to interpret and organize the events reported by management systems that cannot identify discreet element origins. Without a HierarchyFile, Operations Center would represent as a single element everything reported by these management systems.

  • Customize existing algorithm definitions or create additional algorithms.

The View Builder editor performs the same functions as the XML Editor. You can use the View Builder Repository to create, edit, and share element hierarchies in the Service Models hierarchy. For more information, see Using The View Builder Repositoryin the Operations Center Service Modeling Guide.

The XML Editor consists of an XML Element hierarchy pane and an Attribute pane. When you select an element on the left pane, its attributes display in the right pane:

Figure A-1 XML Editor: Select an element in the left pane and view its attributes in the right pane.

To access the XML Editor to edit an Adapter hierarchy, do one of the following:

  • In the Explorer pane, expand Administration > Adapters, right-click an adaptor that supports a hierarchy file, then select Edit Hierarchy Definition.

    The XML Editor loads the associated adapter hierarchy file.

    For a list of adapters that support a HierarchyFile, see the Operations Center Adapter and Integration Guide.

  • To customize existing algorithm definitions or create additional algorithms, see Section 15.4, Modifying the Algorithm Library for instructions on copying the original algorithms file before editing.

  • It is possible to open and work with multiple XML files in the editor.