Your Home for Faceted Classification Tools
Facetmap is both a data model and a software package, created to let users browse complex metadata while retaining a simple, familiar, menu interface.

Build Your Own Facetmap: Writing a Facetmap File

We realize that whipping up the data is the hard part. How can your facets and resources migrate from your servers (or your brain) to a form that Facetmap can understand? Fortunately, it's relatively easy to build a full Facetmap, even from scratch, and easier to add new resources, facets, or entire facet taxonomies to an existing system.

Facetmap also understands the XFML data format. Read on...

Facetmap plaintext Sample
Facetmap markup Sample DTD
XFML Info

Our wine-pickin' demo was entirely configured with a single file, as any Facetmap can be. If you're comfortable with a text editor, you don't need any special software to create a Facetmap file. Pick the format that's right for you:

  • The simplest, most concise format is Facetmap plaintext. This can be the best way to write a no-frills map from scratch; the layout is straightforward and easy for anyone unfamiliar with XML.

  • A more powerful format is Facetmap markup, a simple XML application, which we recommend to those who know XML. Not only is this format more standard, it also offers a few more options. See also our complete XML application specs.

  • XFML is a language for faceted classification of webpages, designed by Peter Van Dijck and explained at http://petervandijck.com/xfml/ . Since its basic concepts are the same as those of Facetmap, you can write your Facetmap in XFML, and this site will parse it correctly.

If you have a format you're interested in turning into a Facetmap, let us know!