Selecting the way to represent design elements on disk

This topic describes the ways to represent the design elements on disk.

There are two different ways to represent the design elements on disk depending on the type of the design element being represented.

  • As a set of 2 files (content and metadata) on disk -- XPages, Custom controls, Style sheets, Files, Themes, Composite Applications, Wiring properties, and JS/SSJS/LS script libraries are represented as a set of 2 files on disk, the content file and the metadata file. The Content file has the actual file content as seen in the editor and the metadata file contains the DXL minus the content to represent rest of the attributes of the design element.
  • As a file containing the DXL of the design element -- The rest of the design elements, Form, View, Pages, Java script libraries, Agents, Shared Actions, etc. are represented as a file containing the DXL of the design element. A preference is provided to use "binary" format for DXL for the exported content. See the Setting source control enablement feature preferences topic for more information.