Can we edit XML documents in Tridion using SiteEdit 2009?

Question

We have started exploring SiteEdit. We could enable and use it for html pages but can anybody guide us whether we can use it if content is published as XML Document. We have tried doing this but the SiteEdit button is not appearing on the published XML page when accessed through the SiteEdit proxy (on port 84).

Answer 1

SiteEdit allows you to edit your content in the HTML of your web site. So if you render the content into (valid) HTML and add the correct SiteEdit commands to that HTML, you can edit it.

SiteEdit will not enable editing of raw XML you publish. Normally I'd expect to find that same content as HTML somewhere else on the web site and enable SiteEdit there.

If you really think there is value in editing the content in an XML-like view, I suggest finding an XSLT that converts the XML to an HTML view (like Internet Explorer shows it) and add that as a Dynamic Component Template to Tridion. If you then embed the necessary SiteEdit commands into that HTML, you can edit the result in SiteEdit. It will of course have become HTML, but it will still look like you are editing the original XML.