Patent ID: 7231598

Claim:
A computer-readable storage medium which stores a set of instructions which when executed performs a method for editing an electronic document comprising one or more markup language tags, the method executed by the set of instructions comprising: providing a first editing mode in which the one or more markup language tags are displayed; associating a placeholder with the one or more of markup language tags; exposing a property for each tag in the electronic document, wherein the property for each tag to be programmatically set for each tag in the electronic document to assign a placeholder to the tag; and displaying the placeholder for each of the one or more markup language tags that is empty while operating in a second editing mode in which the markup language tags are not displayed wherein displaying the placeholder further comprises, receiving a selection of typed data in the electronic document while operating in the editing mode in which the markup language tags are not displayed, the typed data being associated with the placeholder for a tag; receiving a delete request for the typed data; and in response to receiving the delete request, removing the typed data and inserting the placeholder for the tag associated with the typed data, and wherein displaying the placeholder further comprises, determining a text identifying a name for the one or more of the markup language tags associated with the placeholder, the text identifying the name being defined in one of the following: a schema library and a configuration file, determining whether a user-defined text string has been previously defined by a user, setting the placeholder equal to the user-defined text string if it was determined that the user-defined text string has been previously defined by the user, setting the placeholder equal to the text identifying the name for the one or more of the markup language tags associated with the placeholder if it was determined that the user-defined text string has not been previously defined by the user; not displaying the placeholders while operating in the first editing mode; receiving a selection of the placeholder for a tag; receiving typed data following the selection of the placeholder for the tag; in response to receiving the typed data, removing the placeholder for the tag and inserting the typed data within the tag; determining whether the typed data has been removed; in response to determining that the typed data has been removed, displaying the placeholder for the tag while operating within the second editing mode; and wherein the text is defined in an XML Schema Definition (XSD) schema file.