Page Composition. The buildlist.xml is the locus for the set of "page recipes" that—for every single page on the website—determine which named Modules ("instanceName"), go into precisely which Positions (e.g. "_a"), within which Page Layout Zone (e.g. "b_ma_co1"), inside which Page Layout, at what 'path' (URL) in the website (sitemap). It is also where one further "page-centric" item is recorded: the text string for the HTML <title>.

The "document order" of entries in this large and growing file is not significant (<page> entries are not sorted by path (URL)). The way the Buildlist is principally used (the premiere "use-case") is to find a particular page (with its unique URL), via the straightforward "look-up" mechanism of doing a find within the text file. In this way you can discover all Modules used for a particular page.

In the case of creating a new page, do your find on the path to a similar existing page, to get to a <page> entry that is a useful "jumpstart" to copy and paste, as you create the Buildlist entry for your new page.

Finally, of course the corollary to these kinds of look-ups is that you can also do a find on the unique "instanceName" of a given Module, to be led to the Page(s) on which it is used.

Tip

(Future) Automation Possibilities. This kind of manual interaction with the buildlist.xml file serves as a good "requirements document" for future development of applications that might write out new <page> entries, given the minimal set of new information required. Other ideas include: putting some kind of form interface onto the file; or decomposing it into constituent <page> entry mini-documents (which might be managed in a database rather than file system).