I just read the news about the new ExtendedData tag in KML 2.2. With one mighty stroke of the pen, Google has saved the Schema tag, and my sanity along with it!
What does it mean? Basically: KML can still act as a self-contained data exchange format…

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.1"&gt;
<Document>
<Schema parent="Placemark" name="NewElementExampleTag">
<SimpleField type="wstring" name="TOM"></SimpleField>
<SimpleField type="int" name="HARRY"></SimpleField>
</Schema>
<Folder>
<name>My Folder Name</name>
<open>1</open>
<NewElementExampleTag>
<name>New Element Placemark Example Name</name>
<description>Sample Description references the TOM element value: $[TOM]</description>
<TOM>sampleTomValue</TOM>
<HARRY>5</HARRY>
</NewElementExampleTag>
</Folder>
</Document>
</kml>

We have also discovered that in addtion to using the balloon style, you can also directly embed the $[yourCustomElement] references directly within a description field, such as:

My Folder Name
1

New Element Placemark Example Name
Sample Description references the TOM element value: $[TOM]
sampleTomValue
5

I am posting this message because I am pretty sure that we can extract the data from more complex tags such as SimpleArrayField…

Actually if you don’t use the description tag, all the values from the new tags are displayed in the balloon and you get something like array[0] = xyz where x,y and z are three different values concatenated from three different tags…

As you might already know that, I was wondering if you could just post a quick example that works with SimpleArrayField… it will be great!

Thx
Andy

I hope that if we make enough noise about Schema (it’s SOOO much easier to deal with than Metadata) they’ll reconsider and support both going forward.

I certainly see some limitations to this approach. For instance, I don’t know how stable that BalloonStyle is if I re-style the object for point style, etc.

good post, this is a very nice way to keep raw attributes and styling information in the same placemark. the new $[name] balloonstyle tags are quite nice

With A2E, I decided to not go this route because we format the attribute information before adding it to the description. At the very least, ArcMap’s builtin formatters are used (dates look nice, currency looks correct, different numeric notations are used etc) but you can also apply multiple conditions to a field. So if the value is A, “apply this styling” or “insert this html”. The result is a value that is not the original attribute but some formatted version of it based on some logic. I did think of adding Schema tags as well but the bloat of the placemark text can be significant. It’s on the list to make it optional :)

anyways, I heard the Schema depreciation rumor as well. I think I saw it in the actual kml docs awhile back. don’t know where it stands right now…

cheers
brian