The namespace name http://www.prevo.com/namespace/nfm/outline/ is intended for use in various specifications such as:

  • NFM - NASA Format for the Millennia

The purpose of the NFM Outline namespace is to be able to define a simple hyperlinked outline for navigating a document. It was originally created for use as a Metadata Outline element in an NFM document to allow a user to easily navigate within the document. However, the Outline is not specific to NFM and can be used as a general purpose XML-based document outline schema.

The following is the DTD for the NFM Outline associated with the NFM Outline namespace:

  <!-- URI is a Uniform Resource Identifier per [RFC2396] -->
  <!ENTITY % URI "CDATA">
  <!ELEMENT Entry (#PCDATA,Entry*)>
  <!ATTLIST Entry Link %URI; #IMPLIED>

The NFM Outline has a single top-level Entry element. An Entry element must first contain PCDATA which is the text to display for that entry in the outline. The PCDATA may then be followed by one or more child Entry elements, which in turn can contain child Entry elements.

Each Entry may have a Link attribute. If it does, the text that is displayed for the entry will be hyperlinked using the URI specified by the Link attribute. If a Link's URI begins with a pound sign (#), it denotes that the hyperlink is points to a Link contained within the current document.

The following is an example of an NFM Outline embedded in a Metadata element of an NFM document:

  <Metadata Metadata_Type="Outline" xmlns:o="http://www.prevo.com/namespace/nfm/outline/">
     <o:Entry>Example Outline
        <o:Entry>Introduction
           <o:Entry o:Link="#origin">Origin and Goals</o:Entry>
           <o:Entry o:Link="#terms">Terminology</o:Entry>
        </o:Entry>
        <o:Entry>Structures
           <o:Entry o:Link="#word">Word Structure</o:Entry>
           <o:Entry o:Link="#sent">Sentence Structure </o:Entry>
           <o:Entry o:Link="#para">Paragraph Structure </o:Entry>
        </o:Entry>
        <o:Entry o:Link="#idx">Index</o:Entry>
     </o:Entry>
  </Metadata>

 

Example of what the rendered outline might look like...The NFM outline above might be rendered by a viewer to look something like the image shown on the left. Notice that static entry text is in black and hyperlinked entry text is in blue. Also, entries below the top-level entry that have children are preceeded by a control that allows their contents to be hidden or shown.

This is only an example of how a viewer might present the outline. An NFM Outline only contains the data about what should be in the outline. It does not provide any information about how the outline should be presented to the end user.