No questions, just some ANSWERS about XML

Question

I'm relatively new to InDesign and XML (though I've done HTML for many years, so XML at least looked familiar to me). I'm trying to automate production of an InDesign document, and ran into several pitfalls along the way. I'm sure there will be more. But I'd like to share my problems and solutions, for anyone else who may be experiencing the same thing(s).
1) I logically grouped elements using a Parent tag. For example, on the cover page, I have all elements within a "CoverPage" tag which does not reference a physical object. InDesign would not properly import the XML as long as I was using the Parent in this way. After talking it over with Adobe support, we discovered that it worked ONLY if "Clone Repeating Text Elements" is checked--even though I had NO repeating elements. Support said they would report this as a bug.
2) The documentation implies that to replace a linked image in an InDesign document, you use the form:
Maybe it's my HTML experience creeping in, but I assumed Image was a defined keyword that had to appear in the XML. In reality, the actual TAG NAME should take the place of the word "Image". For example, the tag name in my document is "CoverPhoto" and the image is a "c:/myphoto.jpg", so the proper syntax is:
3) I discovered the issue of #2 above, by taking the VERY GOOD suggestion from Support (thanks, Bryce!) of EXPORTING the existing document to XML and seeing how InDesign formats it. Note that it won't add line breaks, but you can still scan through it to see what it's doing. Also be aware that the only things that will export, are things that you have tagged.
4) I had an issue with imported photos not filling the frame as expected. The original images were fitted to the frames. This issue appears in another question in the Archives, without a suitable answer. The answer is surprisingly simple: instead of Right-clicking the image and choosing your Fitting options, which appears to be a "one-time" application, click the image and in the Object menu, go to Fitting > Frame Fitting Options and choose your fitting. This setting seems (so far at least) to "stick" even with imported XML content.
I hope this helps someone else out there avoid some of the frustrations that I went through. I have to admit, InDesign is amazing and sweet--but the documentation on XML needs to be a lot better.

Answer 1

i Sorry, can't find button 'Add Topic'. Have to write here. 8)
Need to build document with repeated items (companies, contacts, description). This info stored in DB and can be exported in XML the way I need. InDesign CS3.
Here is the details:
Each company has name and contacts (address, tel, fax, email and site, BUT some of them may be missed) and may have a description (but may NOT)
In my doc I want to see smth like that for each company:
a) paragraph with company name
b) all contact info in separated paragraphs
c) description paragraph
Trouble is that I get unnecessary line breaks in places where some contact info or description are missed.
Can anyone help? Sorry for my english 8)