XML in Indesign

Question

Hi everyone,
I'm using the xml features in indesign to create an online version of a book. In this online version, the first level headings in the table of contents (which list the chapter names) will act as a hyperlink to the xhtml page that it links to. I can tag each of the table of contents entries with an xml tag using the tags panel but I'm trying to find a way to automatically add an attribute to all these "first level" tags so they can act as anchor tags when it finally reaches the xhtml stage.
At the moment I can click on the tag in the structures pane and then choose "new attribute" from the flyout menu but I'd have to do this for each of the tags that represent first level headings throughout the document. This would mean I'd have to do it about 50 times since there are that many chapters in the book.
Is there a way to target a group of discontiguous tag names and apply an attribute to all of them at once (as they will all have the same attribute name and value pair and will be changed programmatically via xml programming)?
Or is there a way to import a tag into the tags panel that already has this attribute applied?
Appreciate any assistance.

Answer 1

The correct way to address this issue is to use an XSLT transformation. However, since the learning curve on XSLT is so steep, you might try adapting the following script in Script Editor. This is a Mac only solution
--Script adapted from a script by bengt on macscripter.net
--tagList {}
--set tagList to {"tag1, tag2, tag3, etc.}
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS3"
    tell active document
        set theRoot to (item 1 of XML elements) -- the root element
    end tell
end tell
myLoopLoop(theRoot)
on myLoopLoop(myElement)
    tell application "Adobe InDesign CS3"
        tell active document
            --if (name of markup tag of myElment is in tagList then
            if (name of markup tag of myElement contains "Chapter") then
                tell myElement
                    make XML attribute with properties {name:"yourattributename", value:"yourattributevalue"}
                end tell
            end if
            set moreElement to every XML element of myElement
            repeat with x from 1 to (count of moreElement)
                tell me to myLoopLoop(item x of moreElement)
            end repeat
        end tell
    end tell
end myLoopLoop
Greg Ledger
Mac Production Artist Tips and Scripts
http://www.macproductionartist.wordpress.com