HTML template in xml - what kind of architecture is this? - html

Question

My project has many xml files which are using to build html page & page operations. Here is the sample of grid template.
<Contact singular="Contact" indeal="" nodeal="ContactsPlaybook" tooltip="Document Playbook" library="true" tabHidden="true">
<ListingScreen handle = "PlaybookContacts.ashx" suppressCount="true" showFilters="true">
<IncludeScript src="scripts/jjedsEmaUser.js"/>
<SmartIcon editMode="false" requiredAction="Create" name="new" image="new.png" tooltip="Create" separator="false" href="PlaybookContactDetail.ashx?DealRef=${DealRef}" edit="true" />
<SmartIcon editMode="false" requiredAction="Delete" name="BulkDelete" image="delete.png" tooltip="Delete" separator="true"/>
<SmartIcon editMode="false" requiredAction="Read" actionOn="Contact" name="email" image="mail.png" tooltip="Email Team" href="PlaybookEmailTeam.ashx?DealRef=${DealRef}&Subject=Playbook&Body=${LinkToPage}" edit="true" />
<SmartIcon editMode="false" requiredAction="Read" name="print" image="print.png" tooltip="Print" onclick="javascript:window.print()" />
<!--<SmartIcon editMode="false" requiredAction="Administrate" name="CreateEmaUser" image="add_EMA_user.png" tooltip="Create EMA user" onclick="return emans.jjedsEmaUser.create('${DealRef}', '#ListingForm')" />-->
<Filters>
<Filter label="Functional Team" filter="FunctionalCategoryFilter" field="ContactGroupID" prefix="C" empty="FunctionalCategoryRef_NULL">
<PossibleValues displayProperty="Name" />
</Filter>
<Filter label="Country" filter="CountryFilter" by="name" prefix="AD" field="CountryID" displayProperty="Code" empty="-1">
</Filter>
<Filter label="Business Unit" filter="PickListIntFilter" field="BusinessUnit" prefix="C" empty="-1" onlyifsettingtrue="UseSpecialUserDealAccess">
<PossibleValues category="Deal" subcategory="BusinessUnit" />
</Filter>
</Filters>
<Sorting>
<SortColumn name="FullName" dir="asc"/>
</Sorting>
<Query alias="C" ignoreArchiving="true" ignoreDeal="true">
<Block by="C.ContactGroupID" resolveto="DepartmentName" as="Department" />
<JoinTo table="Address" alias="AD" from="C.AddressID" to="AD.AddressID">
</JoinTo>
<Constraint left="C.IsArchived" int="0" />
</Query>
<Column command="true" title="<input type='checkbox' header='true' onclick='ToggleCheckAll(this);'>" editMode="false" special="IsDelete" macro="Checkbox" onClick="ToggleCheckBox(this);"/>
<Column command="true" requiredAction="Update" title="" field="Blank" dbColumn="C.ContactID" macro="ImageLink" fieldType="Contact" tooltip="Edit" image="edit.png" edit="true" />
<Column title="Full Name" field="FullName" macro="LinkToRef" resolveto="FullContactName" from="C.ContactID" contactAlias="C" linkPage="PlaybookContactDetail.ashx"/>
<Column title="Organization" field="C.Affiliation" macro="Text" />
<Column title="Business Unit" field="C.BusinessUnit" property="BusinessUnit" macro="PickList" category="Deal" subcategory="BusinessUnit" storeInt="true" onlyifsettingtrue="UseSpecialUserDealAccess"/>
<Column title="Role" field="C.Role" macro="Text" />
<Column title="Phone" field="C.Phone" macro="Text" />
<Column title="Email" field="C.Email" macro="MailToRef" />
<DeleteDialog name="ContactDelete" info="If you really want to delete {0} please choose the contact which will be used instead."
title="Confirm delete" type="ContactDeleteDialog" >
</DeleteDialog>
</ListingScreen>
</Contact>
Can anyone tell me what kind of architecture is this and what is the real benefit of using this architecture?

Answer 1

It is used in Single page applications to populate the page using an ajax call from the browser to XML files/JSON files in the server thus avoiding reloading of the entire page.
Look into this example
https://www.w3schools.com/js/tryit.asp?filename=tryjs_ajax_xml2
Here on clicking the button the table gets loaded with the xml data from cd_catalog.xml
https://www.w3schools.com/js/cd_catalog.xml
Its architechture is similar to HTML in the way that both are markup languages.
The data is accessed using the nested structure of the tags.In the cd.catalog example the title column is accessed as catalog->cd->title.